


honey, you're familiar like my mirror years ago

by mygalfriday (BrinneyFriday)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Amnesia fic, F/M, because why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-09 23:36:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4368662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrinneyFriday/pseuds/mygalfriday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They wouldn’t tell him anything over the phone, only that his wife had been found wandering a desert planet, barefoot and confused. They’d brought her to the hospital to treat her for dehydration and as her husband and emergency contact, he needed to come fetch her. That’s it. A thousand years since he saw her last and all he knows is that she’s a bit parched.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. something tragic about you

**Author's Note:**

> Story title and chapters titles taken from Hozier’s From Eden. Takes place after the series 8 finale and Christmas special.

They wouldn’t tell him anything over the phone, only that his wife had been found wandering a desert planet, barefoot and confused. They’d brought her to the hospital to treat her for dehydration and as her husband and emergency contact, he needed to come fetch her. That’s it. A thousand years since he saw her last and all he knows is that she’s a bit parched. Fucking hospital.

 

A nurse glances over the desk and glares at him.

 

“Doctor,” Clara hisses.

 

Talking out loud again then. He straightens from his slouch and crosses his arms over his chest, glowering right back at the nurse. “It’s been hours -”

 

“It’s been fifteen minutes,” Clara sighs. “Be patient.”

 

He isn’t sure who to glare at now – Clara or the nurse who still hasn’t blinked. He doesn’t know where in their timeline River is from, how long he has before she’s gone again, he doesn’t even know how she managed to get lost in the first place. River never gets lost. That was always him. He knows absolutely nothing and they want him to be _patient_? The Doctor narrows his eyes at the nurse, triumphant when she finally looks away with a grumble. “Five minutes. If no one explains what the bloody hell is happening in five minutes I’m going to -”

 

“What?” Clara teases, watching him with a fond smile. “Threaten them with your sonic? Use your psychic paper to impersonate a doctor and commandeer a pair of scrubs to sneak into your wife’s room?” She grimaces when he stubbornly avoids her gaze. “Oh god, please don’t do any of those things.”

 

He clenches his jaw. “Five minutes.”

 

She sighs, biting her lip as she studies him. He refuses to look at her, glaring at the floor instead. “Doctor, how can she be here? She’s dead. Like, actually, properly dead.”

 

“For you and I, yes. She’s been dead a very long while.” He fidgets, reluctant to explain. He couldn’t even speak her name after he lost her, referred to her as the mysterious Professor Song instead. Now, he can spout stories of their bickering for hours without blinking an eye but this is different. The intimate details of their time-tangled relationship still seem precious and fragile, like something to protect. “From her perspective, she could still yet be hundreds of years from her fate.”

 

Clara nods slowly and concludes, “Time travel.”

 

“Something like that,” he answers, distracted. River is somewhere in this godforsaken hospital. He’s certain five minutes has passed by now so he reaches into the pocket of his coat for his psychic paper, ignoring Clara’s pleading groan. “Stay here. I’ll be -”

 

“Are you Mr. Song?”

 

He looks up, blinking at the man towering over him in an irritatingly stereotypical lab coat. “Yes. Are you playing dress up or am I finally allowed to see my wife?”

 

The man hesitates. “Of course you can see her. But there’s something you should be aware of first.” He glances down at his data pad like he has all the bloody time in the world and the Doctor bites his tongue to keep from snapping at him. “We treated Mrs. Song for dehydration but our primary concern is her memory loss. She doesn’t seem to remember anything about her life – where she lives, what she does for a living, even her own name.”

 

The Doctor stares at him, keenly aware of the bottom dropping out of his world. His hearts sink into his stomach and his mouth is suddenly so dry he can’t even swallow. The physician keeps talking – he must because his lips are moving – but he doesn’t hear a bloody word of it. He’s standing at the end of a dark, narrow tunnel, peering at everyone on the other side. He only comes back to himself when Clara lays a hand on his arm. He blinks down at it, his mind still troublingly blank, and hears her ask the question he’s too much of a coward to ask for himself.

 

“Does she remember him? Does she remember that she’s married?”

 

“I’m afraid she didn’t mention a husband,” the physician admits. “We thought it best not to alarm her with any new information just yet.”

 

Staring into space, the Doctor listens with a lump in his throat. Clara, his wee minder, keeps asking questions for him. “Does she remember anything at all?”

 

“She retains basic information about the world and the universe around her. She can remember history as accurately as if she’d been there herself. Mrs. Song remains a highly intelligent, clever individual. Her personal history, on the other hand, seems to elude her.” The physician glances down at his notes again and purses his lips. “One of my nurses said she mentioned being in a library -”

 

The Doctor shoots to his feet so quickly his head spins but he’s found his way to the other side of that dark tunnel and there’ll be no stopping him now. Gripping River’s startled physician by the collar of his stark white coat, he leans in until they’re nose to nose and growls thickly, “Take me to her.”

 

-

 

Outside the door of River’s private room, the Doctor prepares himself for the inevitable heartache on the other side. He’s never done this before – met a River who didn’t know at least something about him. He isn’t sure he’s ready to face the blank look in her eyes. He thought he’d managed to escape that particular torment because somehow, in some way or another and no matter the form she took, River always knew him. River always knew everything.

 

He doesn’t like the prospect of being the one with all the answers in their relationship. It was a part he played while she was in University and it hadn’t suited then. He feels certain it won’t suit this body either. This body is too impatient, too old, too damned skittish. Glancing around the empty corridor and back through the doors where Clara stands at the front desk, filling out all the forms they’ll need in order to take River home, he swallows and scrubs a hand over his face. He can do this. She’d done it. So will he.

 

He knocks once and pushes open the door.

 

Sitting on her hospital bed, surrounded by pillows and looking bored, River glances up when he steps into the room. Their eyes meet instantly, drawn together like magnets, and sod it all, he might have prepared for her lack of recognition but nothing could have prepared him for seeing her again. It’s been so long all he can do is stare at her, frozen in place with his hand tight and white-knuckled around the doorknob.

 

River tilts her head, offering him a wary but polite smile. “Are you a doctor?”

 

Forcing himself to look away, he blinks hard at his shoes and finds the strength to release the doorknob, letting the door shut behind him. His throat feels dry and constricted, like no words could possibly make their way up and out but somehow, he manages a soft, “Yes. Just not yours.”

 

Her brow furrows but he can see that brilliant mind struggling to make sense of him, this stranger standing in the middle of her room and undoubtedly looking at her like some sort of long lost deity. He’s not doing a very good job of appearing normal and non-threatening, gaping at her like an idiot, and when he takes a step toward her, her eyes flash with an emotion it takes him a moment to decipher. Fear. She hasn’t been properly frightened of him since she was a little girl and the thought of her reverting back to that now makes his chest ache.

 

He stops in his tracks, holding up his hands and watching her carefully. “You don’t have to be afraid of me,” he promises. “I won’t hurt you.”

 

She has no reason to believe him but her shoulders relax and he wonders if she knows she’d been preparing to fight him, that it is her automatic response around any potential threat. Everything about her past has been wiped away but not that, never that. Kovarian was thorough. “Do I know you?”

 

Hiding his flinch behind a tight-lipped smile, he asks, “What do you think?”

 

“I don’t know your face.” Green, cat-like eyes that always see everything study him from head to toe. It takes more willpower than he’d known this body possessed not to make some sort of innuendo about her scrutiny. He hadn’t even known this body was capable of making innuendos. Trust River to bring that out in him within five minutes. Her gaze lingers at his throat for a moment too long, like she’s searching for something but doesn’t know what. “But you’re still… familiar. How is that?”

 

He ignores her curiosity for now, not sure how to even begin explaining that he’s familiar because he’s her husband but he doesn’t look familiar because every so often, he changes his face. Instead, he leans against the wall next to her bed and says, “Spoilers.”

 

It’s been an age since he had the opportunity to say it but it still feels wrong, like it doesn’t fit inside his mouth as snugly as it always seemed to in hers. That word always belonged to her, no matter how she insisted it was his word first. It suited her, the keeper of their secrets.

 

“Spoilers? What’s spoilers?”

 

“It means I know something you don’t know.” He crosses his arms over his chest and ignores the pang of loss that settles between his hearts. He isn’t ready to be the keeper of their secrets. “What do you remember?”

 

She turns her head to stare out the hospital window, her eyes scanning the setting suns on the horizon. He takes advantage of her inattention, hungrily drinking in the sight of her. She looks exactly the same as the day he lost her, right down to her unlined face and her ginger curls. Beautiful. “The very last thing I can recall is being in a library. A big one.” She pauses, licking her lips, and he watches her with his hearts in his throat. “It felt… ominous. Like I wasn’t welcome. So I rigged one of the transporters to take me somewhere else.”

 

“You rigged a transporter? How? You can’t even remember your own name!”

 

“I don’t know.” Her brow furrows, like she hadn’t thought of that before. “I just sort of… understood how it worked.” So that quack of a physician had been right. She might not remember River Song but she certainly remembers how to be her. “The desert seemed familiar so that’s where I went but once I got there, it didn’t feel right at all. I wandered around until someone found me. I don’t suppose you know what happened?”

 

Well, no sense hiding it from her and this body certainly isn’t one to sugarcoat. “You died.”

 

Turning from the window, River blinks at him. “Pardon?”

 

“The Library,” he explains, looking anywhere but at her. “You died there.”

 

“I died in a library?”

 

He suppresses a snort at the derision in her voice. “ _The_ Library. Wouldn’t listen to a bloody thing I said. You saved everyone – including my sorry arse – from flesh-eating shadows.”

 

Relaxing back against her pillows again, River looks satisfied. “That sounds more like it. Still doesn’t explain what I’m doing here.”

 

He still can’t quite manage to meet her eyes. He stares over her shoulder out the window at the setting suns, and struggles to keep the guilt from leaking into his voice. “That I’m afraid I can’t answer. I saved your consciousness to the planet’s data core. There was nothing else I could do -”

 

“It’s alright, you know.” The sound of her voice startles him into looking directly at her and he’s surprised to find a soft, familiar smile of forgiveness curling her lips. “I can’t even remember it so it wouldn’t be right to blame you.”

 

She’s trying to make him feel better so he manages a tight smile for her sake but benediction from her right now might as well be forgiveness from a stranger. “How you managed to escape with a new body is beyond even me but you did it.” The smug gleam in her eyes is so familiar and so very River he feels a genuine, fond smile tugging at his lips. “Clever lass.”

 

It’s actually happened. Every single daydream for years after he lost her has become a reality. Somehow, in some mad, wonderful way, River escaped the Library. She found a way back to him like Bowtie had always hoped she would. Except she hadn’t come back, not really. This woman isn’t River. She looks like River, talks like River, but she is a blank slate. She has none of the trauma, none of the emotional scars.

 

His last regeneration probably would have seen this as a way to give her a second chance at a normal life. He would have set up an account and a house for her somewhere. He would have let her go without ever telling her who he was and just looked out for her from afar. It would have killed him but he would have done it. He would have told himself it was a kindness, one last selfless act to make up for all he did to ruin her life. It would have been far more selfish than that – self-flagellation of the highest form. River would never have chosen it. And he won’t choose it either. Not now. Not this body.

 

“Well now what?” River asks suddenly, biting her lip. “I’ve been dead for god knows how long… I don’t suppose they kept my job for me. Where am I supposed to go? Do you know where I live? Is that why you’re -”

 

“I’ll look after you.”

 

The words are out of his mouth before he has time to think about them but of course, there was nothing else he could say. Even if there was another option, he wouldn’t want it. He’ll take care of her now just as he’s always taken care of her, even when she didn’t want his help, even when she tried to push him away. Or at least, he’ll try. He isn’t so sure this body remembers how to care for anything, let alone a wife. He let all that slip away so long ago. He doesn’t know if he can get it back. He’ll try though, for her.

 

“You’ll come with me.”

 

“Why would you-” She looks at him with wide, curious green eyes. “Who are you to me?”

 

He blinks away the sting in his eyes and the echo in his ears of another voice saying the very same thing an age ago. He clears his throat gruffly. “Unfortunately for you, I’m your husband.”

 

To her credit, she hides her surprise rather well. Her fingers twitch briefly around her scratchy hospital blanket and her eyelashes flutter – little things he’d never have noticed if he didn’t know her so well. He thought he’d forgotten how to read her. It’s been so long. It seems he’d only tucked away the file in his head marked Infuriating Wife’s Idiosyncrasies and Quirks. It’s a tad dusty but nothing a bit of time around her can’t fix. And suddenly he has all the time in the world.

 

Her eyes narrow and she sucks on her front teeth. The dusty little file in his head helpfully supplies him with _she doesn’t believe a bloody word you’re saying_ and he ducks his head to hide his smirk. “What’s my favorite ice cream?”

 

“What?”

 

“If we’re married, you should know.” She crosses her arms over her chest, waiting.

 

“Pistachio.”

 

She blinks at him. “Is it?”

 

“You don’t remember?”

 

“Not really, no.”

 

He huffs. “Fat lot of good that did you then.”

 

“Oh, shut up.” She scowls at him. “Where’s my ring?”

 

“Ring?”

 

She makes an impatient noise and buggering hell he’s missed that irritating little sound. “Married women tend to wear rings.”

 

“Not every married woman.”

 

“I like accessories.”

 

His lips quirk. “Yes. You do.”

 

“So?” She raises an eyebrow. “Where is it?”

 

For a moment, he contemplates just taking off one of the rings currently on his finger and handing it over. She’d never know the difference. He would though. Sighing, he resigns himself to being labeled an incurable sap and reaches into his pocket, wiggling his fingers around. He feels the pack of gum, the box of matches, the photograph of her he always keeps handy, and finally, what he’s looking for.

 

River stares dubiously at the bowtie when he holds it up triumphantly, her eyebrow lifting again. “What is that supposed to be?”

 

“Your wedding ring. We weren’t the traditional sort.”

 

He drops it into her lap and watches her slowly tip her head down to stare at the puddle of black fabric spilled across her thighs. For all her earlier skepticism, he can see the very moment it sparks something in her. It feels familiar. He can see it in the way her eyes widen and mist over, in the way she reaches out a hand and touches reverent fingertips to the fabric – the gentle touch of an archaeologist.

 

She swallows, picking up the bowtie and wrapping it slowly, methodically around her hand. He looks away, his head filled with every single time in their pasts that she did exactly that – every time she undressed him and they fell into bed, when she was sick and wanted comfort, when she slept, when she grieved, even when she was angry with him. It was never just a symbol of their wedding. It was her security blanket.

 

“Well then, husband.” He risks a wary glance at her, forcing away memories of a woman who doesn’t even exist any more. River watches him with a small, watery smile. “Take me home.”


	2. something so magic about you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out of the corner of his eye, he can see River prowling around the room, inspecting clothes strewn across a chaise, the knick-knacks on the mantle of the roaring fireplace, the papers littering her desk. “How old are you?” 
> 
> “Old.”
> 
> “Sixty?”
> 
> “Two thousand.”
> 
> She doesn’t even flinch, his brave lass. “How old am I?”
> 
> “Younger than me.” He still doesn’t lift his head, watching her bare feet sink into the plush carpet as she moves about the room. “Older than most.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your feedback on the last chapter was so amazing! Bless all of you lovely cinnamon rolls!

She still isn’t wearing any shoes.

 

He’ll have to do something about that. For now, he fiddles with the TARDIS controls and watches her carefully out of the corner of his eye. Her white gown drags along the ground, the hem of it stained with sand and dirt from her trek through the desert. He’ll have to find her something else to wear. He doesn’t know why but he hates the sight of that dress. It looks heavenly, like some macabre uniform for the afterlife. He wants to burn it or throw it into a supernova. Possibly a black hole. He wants it gone.

 

River doesn’t notice his scrutiny, standing in the middle of the control room and staring around with that wide-eyed look on her face he usually only sees in his human companions. She was never impressed by _bigger on the inside_ before. She tips her head back and closes her eyes, a brilliant smile lighting up her face. For a moment, he forgets about the controls and just stares. Under the cool blue glow of the TARDIS lights, the white dress she wears looks even more ethereal than before.

 

Around them, the Old Girl hums in greeting, bright and happy, welcoming her child back with a song, and he realizes it isn’t the size of the ship River is in awe of. Her smile widens, as though she can feel the TARDIS curling around her in a warm embrace. Lifting a hand to her chest – she’d tied the bowtie around her wrist like a bracelet, he notices – she presses her fingertips over her hearts and whispers, “Hello.”

 

River in his TARDIS again, communicating with his ship. His chest feels too tight, too small to hold both of his hearts. He bites back a grimace. She isn’t River, he reminds himself. Not really.

 

Clara nudges him and he tears his eyes away from his wife, suddenly remembering he isn’t exactly alone. “Is she talking to the TARDIS?”

 

“Yes.” He frowns at her. “So what? I talk to the TARDIS all the time.”

 

“Yeah, but you’re mad, aren’t you?”

 

“How do you think I got that way?” He nudges his head in the direction of his wife. “Madder than a bag of wet cats, that one.”

 

Clara keeps her fascinated gaze on River, ignoring him. “It’s like she can hear it. She can’t actually hear it, can she?”

 

“Don’t be an idiot. It’s beneath you. Of course she can.” He flips a lever and sends them into the vortex. River doesn’t even stumble, perfectly balanced as she smiles at thin air. “The TARDIS is a part of her. Partners in bloody crime.”

 

Clara finally looks away from River with a grin. “Are you jealous of River or the ship?”

 

He glowers at her.

 

“Both then?” She lifts a smug eyebrow and turns from him, calling out, “Alright, River?”

 

With a little jump, River turns to look at them with wide, startled eyes, as though they’d woken her from a dream. She blinks a few times, shaking her head. “I – yes, sorry.” Her brow furrows. “Your ship – she spoke to me. Does she always do that?”

 

“Only with people she likes.” The Doctor traces his fingertip over a button on the console in a vain attempt to avoid her gaze. “What did she say?”

 

“What was it you called it?” She smiles suddenly. “Spoilers.”

 

Hearing that word from her mouth – so full of history and teasing and memories she no longer has – is a bit like living Berlin all over again. The Doctor struggles not to flinch, biting down hard on his tongue.

 

Still smiling, River steps closer to the console. It aches more than it should that she no longer recognizes when he’s hurting. “I like that word.”

 

Pushing away from the console, he says, “We should get you settled. Follow me.”

 

He sweeps right past Clara but as he heads further into the TARDIS, he can hear her telling River he’s not so bad beneath the grumpy face and the curt words and well, everything. Before long, he hears the sound of River’s footsteps following behind him. He doesn’t wait for her to catch up but she does anyway, right at his heels in seconds. They walk in silence for a few moments, nothing but the sound of their footsteps echoing through the empty corridors.

 

“Clara is nice,” River finally speaks. “Pretty.”

 

He grunts.

 

“Should I be jealous?”

 

Choking, the Doctor stops in his tracks and whirls to look at her. River nearly walks right into him, one small hand on his chest to keep her balance. The contact burns through his shirt. “What?”

 

“Well I was dead for a while and here you are with this pretty young thing and I thought perhaps -”

 

“No.”

 

“I wouldn’t blame you, of course -”

 

“ _No_.”

 

She stops, staring at him.

 

The Doctor tugs at his collar, feeling strangely flushed. “She’s not – no. It’s… just you.”

 

“Oh.” River bites her lip. “All right. Who is she then?”

 

Turning on his heel and walking swiftly down the corridor, he answers, “One of my companions.”

 

She hurries after him, still managing to keep up. “One of your what?”

 

“I like company when I travel,” he explains tersely. “They tend to keep me out of trouble. Or get me into it. Either way, better with two.”

 

“You travel a lot then?”

 

“Yes.” Turning right, he leads her down another corridor, scanning the doors as they walk briskly past. He’d buried their old bedroom deep in the TARDIS the very night she left him for good. He hadn’t ever wanted to see it again and now he isn’t sure he can even find it any more.

 

“With a lot of women?”

 

He frowns. “And some men.”

 

“But mostly women.”

 

It isn’t a question and he sighs. “Yes, I suppose so.”

 

“And I don’t get jealous?”

 

She sounds skeptical and his lips twitch in a reluctant smile. “No.”

 

“Why not?”

 

He stops abruptly in front of a familiar door made of dark, heavy wood and simply stares, his breath leaving him in a sudden rush. The stale air in the corridor chokes him and he draws in a steadying breath through his nose, ever conscious of River hovering behind him. He hasn’t been in this room since he lost her, the night he took her to the Singing Towers. He couldn’t stand the idea of ever stepping foot in it again, not without her. And now here is she, right behind him, innocently prodding him about his long history of female companions. He touches a tentative hand to the door and swallows. “I suppose you trusted me. And you knew I needed the company.”

 

“Sexual company?”

 

He grimaces, glancing over his shoulder to find River watching him curiously. “They’re children, River. Honestly.”

 

She snorts, lifting an elegant eyebrow. “Clara is a grown woman.”

 

Turning from her again, he pushes open the door to their bedroom and steps aside to let her in. Immediately, the scent of her old favorite perfume washes over him. It probably still clings to the sheets – he never changed them. Their clothes are still in piles on the floor, River’s lingerie draped over a lampshade. He tries his best not to inhale or even look at anything. He can still picture it all clearly enough anyway. “Not compared to me, she isn’t.”

 

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see River prowling around the room, inspecting clothes strewn across a chaise, the knick-knacks on the mantle of the roaring fireplace, the papers littering her desk. “How old are you?”

 

“Old.”

 

“Sixty?”

 

“Two thousand.”

 

She doesn’t even flinch, his brave lass. “How old am I?”

 

“Younger than me.” He still doesn’t lift his head, watching her bare feet sink into the plush carpet as she moves about the room. “Older than most.”

 

She pauses in front of her vanity long enough to make him glance up. He keeps his gaze focused on her and refuses to look anywhere else. She peers into the mirror hanging over the little table, staring at her reflection. He wonders briefly if it’s the first time she’s seen herself since she woke up. “Well, I suppose I’m aging relatively well, considering.” She plucks at a corkscrew curl over her eyes, lips pursed in a critical pout. “Not sure about the hair though. Doesn’t stop, does it?”

 

He recoils, clenching his jaw as he looks away again. She is still so very River, even as she isn’t River at all. It’s worse than even her ghost had been. If he didn’t know her so well, he’d think she was torturing him on purpose. “Sleep before you fall over, would you?” He takes a step back, hoping to escape the room with his sanity intact. “And change out of that heavenly nightmare. Clothes are in the wardrobe.”

 

River looks away from her reflection to smile tentatively at him. “Alright. Thank you.”

 

He nods quickly, retreating with as much dignity as he can muster as he shuts the door behind him. Once in the hallway, he leans against the wall and shuts his eyes tightly, struggling to breathe. He can’t do this. How can he possibly be expected to do this? He hasn’t been married in centuries. He doesn’t remember how to be a husband, let alone to a woman who can’t remember being his wife.

 

From inside their bedroom, he hears River humming as she moves to the wardrobe and he quickly pushes away from the wall, making his way back to the control room. He’s still fretting by the time he gets there and Clara snorts with laughter the moment she looks up and sees him. He scowls, stalking to the console. “What?”

 

“Nothing.” She shrugs, following after him with her hands behind her back. “It’s just fun, seeing you all frazzled.”

 

“Frazzled?”

 

“Out of sorts.” She grins, all big eyes and smugness.

 

He bristles. “I am not out of sorts.”

 

“You totally are.” Clara laughs, leaning against the console next to him. She watches him far too carefully for him to pretend to fiddle with the controls. He scowls up at the monitor and ignores her. “She makes you out of sorts. It’s sweet.”

 

Turning his incredulous gaze on her, he snaps, “I am _not_ sweet! I don’t do banter and I don’t do sweet.”

 

Between one breath and the next, Clara drops her smile and folds her arms over her chest, eyeing him sternly. “You need to.”

 

He blinks at her. “What?”

 

“River needs you to be her husband, Doctor. Y’know, supportive. Patient.” She prods him in the arm with one finger, eyeing him so fiercely he can’t quite muster the will to swat her away. “Not a crabby old man.”

 

“Are you new?” He grumbles, turning away from her. “I’ve always been a crabby old man.”

 

“Well, now you even look like one so make an effort, yeah?” Clara nudges him. “You’ve got to woo your wife all over again. Being your usual stroppy self isn’t going to work.”

 

“No one said a damn thing about _wooing_.” He scowls. “I’m going to help her get her memories back.”

 

“Right. Of course. My mistake.”

 

He huffs at Clara’s skeptical eyebrow. “What now?”

 

“Nothing.” She purses her lips, shrugging. “How are you planning to recover her memories?”

 

“I’m not sure.” He’s been turning over the problem in his head since River’s physician told him the news. The main focus of his vast brain – the part of him that isn’t devoted to either gazing at her in wonder or wholeheartedly panicking – has been what to do to bring his wife back to him. So far, he has nothing concrete. There isn’t exactly a scientific formula for this sort of thing. “I thought we could take her back to Luna -”

 

“We?” Clara shakes her head, frowning. “There is no _we_. You’re on your own for this, Doctor. I’m going home.”

 

“What?” He stares at her in horror, one shaking hand gripping the console. “You can’t just go and leave me here with -”

 

“Your wife?”

 

“She’s not my wife,” he snaps.

 

Clara stares at him, lips parted in surprise. He shifts uneasily under her gaze until she snaps her mouth shut and says, “Don’t ever let her hear you say that.”

 

“I didn’t -” He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean it like that. She’s as much a stranger to me right now as I am to her. I don’t know how to be what she needs any more.”

 

“You’ll remember.” Clara smiles softly, leaning into his side. He tries not to stiffen, holding very still. Christ, he barely tolerates friendly touches any more. How is he ever going to relearn River and her constant need to have her hands on him? “River will remember too. I think a trip to her home might be good for her and I don’t want to get in the way. She needs familiarity, not some strange girl she thinks her husband is shagging.”

 

He sputters.

 

Clara lifts an eyebrow. “It’s what I’d be thinking if I were her.”

 

“Then you’re both touched in the head. You’re far too pocket-sized. And your eyes are ridiculous. Your ego is frankly terrifying in size and not to mention you’re only a human. That’s just a step above an ape -”

 

“Blimey, now I really want to stay and help.” Clara rolls her eyes, turning from him to pick up her purse, the strap of it dangling from a lever on the console. She’s actually planning to leave and he panics, taking a step toward her.

 

“I need you here.” He’s entirely aware of how close he is to begging but the thought of being alone with not-River is terrifying enough to make dignity unimportant by comparison. “You’re supposed to be my carer.”

 

Clara pats his cheek, smiling. “It’s your turn to be the carer. You can’t do that if you’re too busy hiding behind my skirts.”

 

“Nobody could hide behind your skirts.” He scoffs. “Have you seen them? Almost as wee as you are. Drop a piece of chalk in class and you’re going to scar the children.”

 

She glares. “ _Home_ , granddad.” 

 

He deflates, lowering his eyes to the floor and glaring at it. “Fine.”

 

“Thank you.” Clara wraps her arms around his waist and squeezes, holding on tight. “It’s going to be all right.”

 

Arms hovering in mid-air at his sides, the Doctor grimaces. “About the hugging -”

 

“Get used to it.” Clara lifts her head from his chest with a wry grin. “You’ve got a wife now. Hugging is the least of your worries.”

 

-

 

After he drops Clara off, he lands the TARDIS in River’s back garden on Luna and waits for her to wake up. He paces around the console, hands behind his back, and tries to convince himself that Clara was right. River will remember with time. Until then, he just needs to be patient and somehow manage not to scare her off. Be a husband. It isn’t going to be easy. He lost everything that made him River’s husband when he regenerated. He willingly let it all go, certain he would never need a warm touch or sweet words ever again. Now, he isn’t sure how to go about picking it all back up. He isn’t sure it’s even possible.

 

The Doctor glances down at his hands gripping the console. Older, weathered hands that know how to clench into fists, that always know how to save himself but not always how to save others. Hands that have never touched another with tenderness, hands that have never known the warmth of River under them. Somewhere, deep down inside, he quietly admits that he isn’t quite as devastated about River’s memory loss as he should be. It’s almost a relief that she doesn’t have his younger self to compare him to. She would certainly find this version of him lacking.

 

A hoarse scream echoes from down the corridor and keeps him from dwelling on his own deficiencies any longer. He snaps his head up in alarm. _River_. He’s running before he has time to think and halfway to their bedroom before he realizes she must be having a nightmare. She had them often enough before but it hadn’t occurred to him that she would experience them again without her memories. Without them, what was there to be afraid of?

 

He bursts into their bedroom and catches only a glimpse of her fighting blindly against blankets and some invisible foe before he rushes forward. “River?” He struggles to pin her down, fighting to grasp her wrists and keep her from lashing out at him. “River, it’s just a dream. Open your eyes.”

 

Robbed of her fists, she starts kicking out at him instead. She comes alarmingly close to hitting him right between the legs and the Doctor swears, dodging another blow before clambering onto the bed. Snatching her around the waist, he drags her kicking and screaming onto his lap. He slides his hands roughly through her hair and presses his face to hers, concentrating on projecting calm he doesn’t truly feel. In a matter of moments, River stops struggling.

 

He breathes out a sigh of relief and waits for her eyes to open, leaning away from her face to watch. It’s only then he realizes he’s holding her, that he’d rushed to her side and gathered her into his arms without flinching, without one moment of hesitation. It seems his body remembers what to do even if his mind struggles. Something in his chest comes unknotted at the knowledge. He can do this. He can.

 

“Doctor?”

 

He strokes an awkward hand over her hair, attempting a smile when she opens her eyes. “It’s alright now. It was just a dream.”

 

River would have shied away from his touch in a moment like this, stiff and full of self-loathing for letting him see her so vulnerable. Now, however, she clings to his jacket lapel and trembles, burying her face in his neck. She’s forgotten all about hiding the damage. It’s one thing about his River he doesn’t miss.

 

The Doctor tries not to focus too much on holding her, afraid if he concentrates, he’ll lose the gentle touch he only just rediscovered. He clears his throat, trying to recall other nights when River’s nightmares woke them both. He lit candles, he remembers. He lit candles and held her hand and he always asked – “Do you want to talk about it?”

 

She shakes her head, fingers white-knuckled around his lapel. “I don’t even remember.”

 

“No.” He sighs, closing his eyes. “You never did.” He always thought she was lying to him in an attempt to save him from the scars of her childhood and his inevitable guilt. It’s somewhat of a comfort to know she really hadn’t remembered.

 

When he opens his eyes again, he realizes he had willingly stepped into their bedroom for the first time in centuries. He’s sitting on their bed, on sheets that still smell like her perfume and blankets that had warmed their bare skin as they curled around each other for the last time. He swallows tightly, letting his eyes fall to the floor, where their clothes still lay – her shining green dress and his new suit. He never wore it again.

 

“Why did you bring me here?” He blinks, glancing down at River again. She isn’t shaking any more. Her hands rest calmly against his chest and green eyes that always see far too much are watching him with a hint of pity. “It’s obvious this place isn’t a room any more. It’s a shrine for a dead woman.”

 

“I don’t need a shrine – you’re not dead." He touches a tentative fingertip to her hand on his chest, part of him terrified she's still nothing but a ghost, a mirage made up of data code and dusty books. "You’re here.”

 

Her eyes slide away from his and she lifts one shoulder in an elegant shrug. “Am I?”

 

It’s a question he’s been asking himself all day but he still has no answer to give her.


	3. something lonesome about you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> River takes another step toward him, her voice soft as she asks, “How long has it been?”
> 
> “A while.”
> 
> “I’m sorry.” Her hand falls to her wrist, fingers touching the bowtie in an unconscious effort to seek comfort where she always has. “This must be strange for you.”
> 
> Oh, my wee psychopath. You’ve no idea.

River has been gone for centuries and just a month all at once. Her house on Luna is exactly as she left it, right down to the faulty lock on her garden gate. She slips inside ahead of him only to stand in front of the cottage and stare unblinkingly, her arms hanging at her sides. The Doctor stands behind her and stares at the back of her head, wondering if she’s remembering something already. Finally, her shoulders drop and all she says is, “It’s a bit small, isn’t it?”

 

Biting back his disappointment, the Doctor sighs. Compared to her cell in Stormcage, this place had been a palace to her. He can still remember the day she bought it – the bright grin and the sparkling eyes as she took him by the hand and gave him a tour, proud to finally have somewhere to call her own that didn’t have bars on the windows. They’d christened every inch of the place before the night was over. “You never needed much space,” is all he says.

 

“Maybe not,” she says, glancing over her shoulder. “But you seem like a bit of a hoarder.”

 

He looks away, staring at the wildflowers growing up the side of one cottage wall. “I didn’t live here.”

 

He can feel the heavy weight of River’s gaze on him. “I thought we were married?”

 

“We were.” He grimaces. “Are.”

 

River frowns, her brow furrowed as she tilts her head. “Then why didn’t we live together?”

 

“You liked your freedom,” he explains with a shrug. “I liked mine.”

 

She hums, turning back to stare at the cottage. “Doesn’t sound like much of a marriage.”

 

With her back to him, he doesn’t have to hide the way her words make him flinch. His inadequacies in their marriage have been haunting him long before he even lost River – he hardly needs reminding. He licks his lips and forces annoyance into his voice, “Amnesiac wives don’t get to pass judgement.”

 

When she’s through inspecting the flowers in her garden and running her fingertips over the ancient – undoubtedly stolen – knocker on her door, they step into the house and the Doctor lingers in the doorway, trying his best not to look too closely at anything while River wanders around trying to spark her memory.

 

He never lived here but he spent his fair share of time at the cottage. He considered it their private getaway, an escape from the expectations of the universe. He always hated boring Sundays but when he spent them here with River, lounging in her bed with her pressed warm against his side, a book in her hand, there was no better day of the week. He had arranged and rearranged her high heel collection, made blanket forts and set up a house-wide game of dominoes using books from her shelves. He made countless cups of tea in her kitchen and took naps on the sofa in her living room, only to wake up and find her sitting on the floor staring at him, a soft smile on her face. She’d press her forehead to his and whisper, “I’m glad you’re here.”

 

He shakes away the memory and glances up, rattled. River stands in front of the fireplace, leaning in to inspect the pictures clustered together on the mantle. She picks up a framed one of herself cocooned between Amy and Rory, their arms wrapped tightly around her as they all grin at the camera. He watches River smile softly down at the image and steels himself for the inevitable question.

 

“Who are they?”

 

“Your parents.”

 

“Are they -”

 

“Gone.” He swallows. “Long time ago.”

 

River places the frame back on the mantle carefully and goes back to studying the others. He waits for her next question with his eyes closed, rocking back on his heels with his hands in his pockets. “All these pictures – you aren’t in any of them. I’m with this young man. Massive chin. Tiny bit sexy.”

 

He smiles thinly, opening his eyes to find her tracing a fingertip over the image of his younger face. “Chin Boy is me. Notice your wedding ring round his neck?”

 

She frowns. “What -”

 

“Instead of dying I change my face. Curse of my species, I’m afraid.”

 

“Of course,” she murmurs, still staring at his photograph. “You’re a Time Lord.”

 

His breath catches painfully in his throat and he reminds himself she isn’t remembering a damn thing. She never lost her knowledge of her studies, only him. He takes a step toward her, watching her tighten her grip on the photograph in her hand. As he gets closer, he sees that it’s one he had taken himself on one of their picnics. River had been sprawled out on a blanket in the grass, too full to move, and he’d held the camera out, squashing his face close to hers and grinning brightly as he snapped the picture.

 

She stares down at the photograph for a moment longer, her brows knit together as she concentrates. Is she remembering? Perhaps the photographs had been the key – “We look happy enough, I suppose.”

 

He sighs, violently shoving aside the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he watches her put the frame back.

 

She steps back from the mantle and turns to face him, frowning. “Why aren’t there any pictures of you with the face you have now?”

 

Uncomfortable under her searching gaze, he lowers his eyes only to be met with the sight of his old bowtie still wrapped around her wrist. “This face happened after you went to the Library.”

 

River takes another step toward him, her voice soft as she asks, “How long has it been?”

 

“A while.”

 

“I’m sorry.” Her hand falls to her wrist, fingers touching the bowtie in an unconscious effort to seek comfort where she always has. “This must be strange for you.”

 

_Oh, my wee psychopath. You’ve no idea._

 

“It wouldn’t be you if it wasn’t strange.”

 

Though he still can’t quite manage to meet her eyes, he can tell she hesitates before she says, “You don’t have to stay. You’ve been without me for some time now and I don’t even know you. I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to -”

 

“ _No_.”

 

She jumps and he blinks at her, just as startled as she by his fierce vehemence.

 

He makes an effort to soften his voice as he meets her wide eyes, swallowing past the lump in his throat. “I’m staying. If you don’t mind.”

 

“Alright.” River nods slowly, managing a small smile. “Stay.”

 

-

 

So he stays. He stays and endures the endless frustration of learning River all over again, right along with her.

 

The first week is treacherous at best. River sets about exploring her closet, emerging in one of the mini skirts Amy bought for her just after Berlin. Perched on the edge of the sofa like a startled bird, the Doctor gapes at her in silence. He hadn’t realized she’d even kept those clothes. She drove him wild in University with flouncy dresses and itty-bitty shorts but ultimately, River Song was a creature of finer tastes.

 

“Is this alright?” She stops in front of him and glances down at herself, looking unsure. “It was hanging in my closet so I can only assume I wear it but it doesn’t feel…” She trails off, looking to him for guidance.

 

He snaps his mouth shut and clears his throat. She looks more than just all right. She looks lovely, just… not like River. He doesn’t say that though, because looking at her now, she looks every bit as unsure of herself as she had in her university days and the last thing she’d needed then was to be compared to who she would be one day. He won’t do it now either.

 

“It’s fine,” he says, and leaves it at that.

 

She wears another mini skirt the following day and he notes with amusement every time she tugs uncomfortably at the hem. It makes it a little easier to ignore the irritating flutter in his stomach every time his eyes land on her bare legs. Centuries spent apart or not, no one brings out the heat of desire in him quite like River. He hadn’t even _felt_ desire in this body yet. Considering she can’t remember any of their more private moments together, he can’t help feeling a little guilty for spending so much of his time dwelling on them. Not that it stops him.

 

It’s almost a relief when the day after that one, she wanders out of her closet with a content smile and a pair of jodhpurs. Looking up from his book, the Doctor suppresses a sigh of relief and asks, “Trousers, today?”

 

River smiles and smoothes her hands over her thighs, oblivious to the way his eyes follow the movement raptly. “Those skirts were terribly… they just didn’t feel like me.” She gives a little shrug. “Whoever that is.”

 

They spend the day in awkward domesticity and the next rainy afternoon, the Doctor is horrified to discover he can’t remember how River takes her tea. He stands at the kitchen counter, gripping the edge of it to keep from swaying in place, and closes his eyes. Years of making her cuppa after cuppa – when she was too busy working to look after herself, when she was ill, when he woke first in the mornings, or after a row as an apology. And he can’t remember.

 

Hissing out a breath through his teeth, the Doctor keeps his eyes shut and calls out, “River? How do you like your tea?”

 

After a short pause, River pads into the kitchen from her living room, looking sleepy and disheveled. She stands at the counter, peering at him, and rubs at her ankle with a socked foot. “You don’t know?”

 

He swallows, lowering his eyes to his white-knuckled grip on the counter. “It’s been a while,” he explains weakly.

 

River doesn’t say anything but he can practically sense her pitying stare as she admits, “I don’t remember either.”

 

He clenches his jaw. “Right.”

 

Striding to the stove, he snatches up the kettle and sets about boiling the water. He bangs around in the cupboards, searching noisily for mugs, fuming all the while. River lingers in the doorway and watches him in silence for a long moment before she disappears back into the living room without a word. He slams a mug down on the counter and grits his teeth. He’s supposed to be looking after her and helping her remember who she is. How can he possibly do that when his own memories of her seemed to have slipped through his fingers when he wasn’t paying attention?

 

Scowling, the Doctor makes cup of tea after cup of tea until the entire counter is littered with steaming mugs, all prepared differently. When he’s satisfied he has every combination possible, he stomps out to the living room and finds River curled up on the sofa, staring at a stack of photos. “Come in here and taste the damn tea before it gets cold.”

 

She follows after him and when she sees the wide assortment in front of her, she looks at him and laughs exactly like his River would have, loud and a wee bit exasperated, her eyes bright with gratitude. The Doctor stands at her shoulder, not satisfied until she samples them all.

 

She likes two sugars and just a bit of milk.

 

He very firmly files away the information in the rapidly re-accumulating folder in his head and watches in silence as she finishes her cup.

 

-

 

“Who’s this?”

 

“You.”

 

“I don’t look like that.” She touches her hair and inspects the back of her hand, as if just to be sure.

 

The Doctor glances up from his book again with a sigh. “Remember that thing I said about changing my face? Surprise, you did it too.”

 

“Really?” She pokes experimentally at her own cheek, like it might happen any second without warning. “Well, that might be nice. Maybe one day I’ll get rid of this nose.”

 

He scowls, fingers curling tight around the pages of his book. “What’s wrong with it?”

 

“Seriously?” She turns to face him, tilting her head to the side. “Look at it! Belongs on a ruddy bird, not a person.”

 

It’s River insulting herself and of course he knows that but somehow, without her memories, it feels a bit like someone else insulting River. He doesn’t like it. It doesn’t even matter. She can’t change her face any more. It would be easy enough to inform her of the fact but instead, the Doctor grits his teeth. “There’s nothing wrong with your nose.”

 

River eyes him for a long moment and then turns back to her photo albums with a muttered, “Can’t expect a two thousand year old man to have decent eyesight.”

 

The Doctor spends a few more seconds glowering at the back of her head and then returns to his book. He makes it through another half a page before she interrupts him again, holding up another picture.

 

“Where’s this?”

 

He pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers and counts to three before he lifts his head. “New York,” he says, then pauses, studying the picture for a moment longer. “No, New New York. We went for your mother’s birthday.”

 

River turns the picture around to examine it again, her brow furrowed. “Why are we wearing such extravagant clothes?”

 

He shrugs.

 

“Doctor?”

 

“Because I meant to take us to a ball in 1865,” he snaps, turning back to his book. “Must I give you a running commentary of every bloody photograph in there?”

 

River purses her lips, looking amused despite his temper. “Well it would certainly aid in jarring my memory.”

 

He spends another long moment staring sightlessly at the page in front of him as River turns the pages in the photo album, keeping blessedly silent. She gets through two pages before he carefully shuts his book and puts it aside, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Fine,” he says. “What else do you want to know?”

 

Brightening, River scoots forward and holds up the album, tapping another picture. “What exactly is happening here? Is that a _fez_?”

 

“You shot it ten seconds later.”

 

“Really?” She looks intrigued, eyebrows raised and eyes bright. “Were you angry?”

 

“Furious.” The Doctor feels his lips curling into a smile and looks away, clearing his throat. “I always seemed to be in some state of exasperation with you. Or vice versa.”

 

River frowns at the picture – his younger, floppy-haired self with his arms wrapped tight around River, who stood with her arms crossed as she glared at the monstrosity on his head. “Are you certain we were happy?”

 

He stares at the photograph, two people still very much alive and sitting in this very room but both so very changed in one way or another. Is that goofy, romantic sap still in him somewhere? Is his wife hiding inside the woman beside him now? He brushes his fingertips over the worn edge of the picture and answers her question. “When we were together? Always.”


	4. something so wholesome about you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It isn’t really her he’s angry with. He’s angry that he can’t get her to remember a bloody thing even after weeks of being on Luna. He’s angry that even with her right in front of him, he doesn’t really have River. He can’t hold her. He can’t kiss her. He isn’t even sure he remembers how but he knows he could get the hang of it again if given the chance.

By the end of the second week, River has sorted through every photograph and moved on to rediscovering her books. She touches a fingertip to the spine of every one on her shelf, head tilted as she squints at the titles. The first book she picks up is a collection of alien poetry and for a moment, he thinks she’s going to remember the time when she threw it at his head. It’s the only reason she owns the hefty volume – it makes for an excellent weapon. His hearts sink when she carries the book with her to the sofa and curls up, opening to the first page like she’s going to actually read it.

 

River never had the patience for poetry.

 

It’s with a strange sense of relief that he watches her toss it across the living room an hour later, grumbling to herself about pretentious ramblings as she stalks back to the bookcase and picks something else. She returns to the sofa with a tome on the history of the Aplan civilization and spends the next few hours exclaiming under her breath about the brilliance of the author before she realizes she’d been the one to write it. He watches her glare at him for his gentle mocking and wonders if getting her to remember who she is might not be so difficult after all. Every time he looks at her, he can’t help but feel River is still in there somewhere, waiting to come out.

 

By the third week, they’re both getting a bit bored. While the Doctor has gotten better at sitting still with age, he hasn’t grown to like it any more than he ever did, especially with a TARDIS sitting in the garden waiting to take him anywhere and everywhen. Even without her memory, River is no better. She takes to pacing through the cottage, studying photographs again and again until she can’t recall if they’re familiar because she remembers them or because she has spent too long staring at them.

 

He spends his days making tea so he never forgets how she likes it again, sitting at the window staring longingly out at his ship, or reading River’s alien poetry collection out loud to irritate her. He’s in the middle of struggling through a particularly difficult sonnet – all the vowels are missing – when River emerges from her bedroom with an expectant smile.

 

The Doctor stops reading and stares at her, mouth agape. His hearts plummet into his stomach. He swallows and manages a hoarse whisper. “What did you do?”

 

“I straightened it.” River runs a hand through silky locks and smiles. “Took me all morning. What do you think?”

 

“What do I think? You’ve -” He gestures helplessly at her head, gaping in horrified silence. All of those wild, brilliant curls have been tamed into submission, hanging docilely around her shoulders, and something inside him just snaps. “What’ve you done to it? It’s flat!”

 

River frowns, clutching at her hair protectively. “Well that’s what happens when you straighten it -”

 

“It’s _wrong_!” He drops the poetry and jumps to his feet, wide-eyed with betrayal. “It’s not you! You’ve got a _Time Head_. Time isn’t straight and flat and boring! It’s big-” He makes a wide, frantic gesture with his arms and River blinks at him like he’s gone mad. “It’s curvy and ridiculous and doesn’t make any sense!” He jabs a finger at her hair. “ _That_ is not a Time Head! You don’t even look like her!”

 

“Doctor -”

 

“ _No_.” He cuts her off with a pained grimace, gazing at her and absolutely terrified to find nothing of his wife, of River looking back at him. “You’re not her. You’re a walking, talking _River-bot_.”

 

He storms out of the house before she can retaliate by throwing that book at his head – not that she would. River would have. His River-bot probably wouldn’t even think of hurting anyone. The Doctor escapes to his TARDIS, slamming the doors shut behind him. He stares sightlessly up at the time rotor as the Old Girl hums soothingly all around him. Back pressed to the doors, he slides down to the floor and settles there for a good sulk, trying valiantly to push thoughts of that horrible tamed hair from his mind.

 

It takes him an hour to calm down, unclench his jaw, and admit that he might have overreacted a wee bit. It isn’t really her he’s angry with. He’s angry that he can’t get her to remember a bloody thing even after weeks of being on Luna. He’s angry that even with her right in front of him, he doesn’t really have River. He can’t hold her. He can’t kiss her. He isn’t even sure he remembers how but he knows he could get the hang of it again if given the chance. 

 

He’s angry because he was just beginning to let go of her and now she’s turned up again, making him miss her all over. It still feels like he’s living with a ghost. That woman out there isn’t his wife. She has none of River’s memories, none of her quirks and mannerisms. She hasn’t called him _sweetie_ once. She knows nothing about him when River knew everything. His only comfort has been that she looked like River and then she’d walked out of her bedroom looking nothing like the woman he loved. It was a bit like losing the last piece of her, his last connection to River.

 

He wants to get his wife back. But it isn’t River’s fault he doesn’t know how.

 

It’s another thirty minutes before he summons enough humility to climb to his feet and venture out of the TARDIS with contrition in his gait. He doesn’t make it far. River sits on the steps of her front porch, obviously waiting for him. He stops in his tracks and stares at her. Her hair is curly again and damp, lank tendrils wet the shoulders of her blouse.

 

She looks up at him with a small, hopeful smile and he feels like a right bastard.

 

With a sigh, the Doctor crosses the distance between them and settles onto the step next to her, elbows on his knees. He can’t quite make himself meet her eyes so he stares at the ground between his feet and tries to form the words to apologize. He hasn’t done much apologizing in this body. It’s a bit new. River, as always, doesn’t have the patience to wait for him.

 

“I just wanted to try it. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

 

He bristles, turning his head to frown at her. “You didn’t.” She gives him a dubious look, brows raised, and he huffs. Glaring at his knees again, he mutters, “It didn’t suit you.”

 

“So I gathered.”

 

“I… didn’t mean to upset you either.”

 

“I know.”

 

She leans into his side hesitantly, laying her head on his shoulder. The Doctor stiffens in surprise and turns his head again, letting her damp hair brush his jaw as he looks down at her. She avoids his gaze, biting her lip, and he forces himself to relax, leaning into the warm weight of her.

 

“Every time you look at me, I can tell that you’re waiting. For her.” Her voice gives no emotion away and for some reason, that’s worse than upsetting her – like she’s learning to hide the damage all over again. “Sometimes, it feels like even when I speak I’m disappointing you. Like whatever I’ve said isn’t _her_ enough.”

 

He sighs. “River -”

 

She shakes her head, pulling away to look at him with eyes that hide nothing, and he’s reminded again of just how much of herself she’s forgotten. “I thought maybe if I looked different, you might see me for who I am now. That’s why I straightened my hair – I just wanted you to stop treating me like a ghost.”

 

He kisses her before he can talk himself out of it, taking her face in his hands and crashing his mouth roughly against hers. His fingers bite into her jaw but River doesn’t pull away. She gives as good as she gets, grasping the collar of his jacket and arching into him with a surprised little noise that makes him groan, his teeth sinking into her lip. Her kisses are the same, he realizes with relief – greedy and with her whole heart, taking what she wants like she’s afraid he might not give it willingly. He soothes her the way he remembers, fingers stroking her cheeks but offering her no resistance, showing only his eagerness to ravish her in return. Eventually, she softens and stops trying to conquer. They linger for a bit just like that, lips sliding together, parting, brushing together again, their breath hot between them.

 

The Doctor allows himself a moment to nip briefly at her lip before he reluctantly pulls away, his breathing labored as he rests his forehead against hers. River keeps her eyes shut, still holding him close by the lapel of his coat. “You’re not a ghost.”

 

She smiles sadly and shakes her head. “No, I’m a River-bot.”

 

He sighs, releasing her jaw to rake his fingers through her damp, tangled hair. “Never met a robot who snogged like that,” he grouses, pleased when she flushes. “You’re River.”

 

“Not yet. But I want to be.” She opens her eyes and pulls away to look at him properly. Her eyes are glistening as she meets his gaze. “I want to remember the woman in those pictures. I want to remember you.”

 

“You will,” he promises gruffly. And because touching her is something he can apparently do now, he buries his face in her hair like he’s been longing to do for weeks, clutching her to his chest like she might slip away. She still smells how she used to, like her dusty books and her wildflowers. It makes his eyes sting as he breathes her in. “I’ll get your memories back.”

 

“I know you will.” River strokes her fingers over the back of his neck and lets him cling to her, the calm to his storm even when she can’t remember why. “I don’t know how I know, but I do.”

 

-

 

Vastra watches with bright reptilian eyes as he paces in front of her mantle, wearing a path in the plush rug under his feet. He says nothing and she doesn’t pry, both of them waiting in tense silence until Jenny distracts River, leading her into the kitchen to help prepare tea and biscuits.

 

Luna hasn’t been working. Surrounding River with photographs and mementos, with her favorite books and her beloved expedition finds isn’t working. Out of patience and verging on desperate the more despondent River has become, the Doctor had gone to the only other being in the universe he trusted might have an answer he did not. He listens to the clock ticking away in the corner of the room and leans against the mantle, finally turning to look at Vastra. “Did you know?”

 

“Did I know what?”

 

“That River found a way out of the Library.”

 

Vastra sits up straighter in her chair and blinks startled blue eyes at him. Her gaze flickers toward the doorway where Jenny and River disappeared into the kitchen. “You don’t mean to say -”

 

The Doctor doesn’t let her finish, staring her down. “Did you help her plot in one of your tea-soaked out-of-body rendezvous?”

 

Mouth thinning into a tight line, Vastra thrusts out her chin and says primly, “I can assure you I knew nothing of her plans. If I had, I would have done my best to talk her out of them.”

 

He snorts, turning from her to glare into the crackling fire. “That’s probably why she didn’t tell you.”

 

“She could have wound up deleting herself entirely.”

 

“In a way I suppose she did.” The Doctor scrubs a hand over his face and sighs when he glances over his shoulder and sees Vastra’s puzzled gaze fastened on him. “However she escaped, it went wrong. She can’t remember a thing.”

 

He has never known Vastra to gape – she’s far too poised for such an uncouth expression – but at the moment, she’s doing a remarkable impression of the humans she has spent most of her long life with. “She must remember _something_.”

 

 With a glance at the doorway to make sure River hasn’t returned, the Doctor tersely explains how River had been found and his trip to the hospital to retrieve her. “She remembers everything but her own sodding life. She can’t remember who she is or who you are. She doesn’t remember her parents.” He swallows, tugging at his hair. “Or me.”

 

Vastra waits a moment, watching him clench his fists and grit his teeth. “I’m sorry, old friend, but have you considered that you might have the wrong perspective in all this?” When he glances at her with a frown, she explains softly, “I witnessed your heartbreak after the Singing Towers, in case you’ve forgotten that unpleasant period of your life. You gave up on the universe. Its wellbeing did not matter without her.”

 

The Doctor works his jaw in silence, glowering at his shoes.

 

“Now she has returned to you. Perhaps not how either of you would have liked but you can begin again. Of all those who have endured the loss of love, it is a gift very few have been given.”

 

“I know.” He paces away from the fireplace and very nearly throws himself onto the settee across from Vastra, huddled in the corner with his elbows on his knees and his chin in hand. Breathing out quietly through his nose, he repeats softly, “I know.”

 

“Then why have you come here?” Vastra eyes him knowingly. “If it was just to reintroduce River to her old friends, you would have made introductions when you arrived.”

 

“She’s still River,” he says, and remembers the heat of her lips against his. He presses his fingertips to his mouth. “But she isn’t. She’s young all over again.”

 

“Then help her to grow,” Vastra says gently. “You did once before.”

 

“And I would again but she wants her memories. I wouldn’t be here if she didn’t.” He covers his face with his hands, heaves a great sigh, and peeks at his old friend through his fingers. “Is it possible?”

 

“What makes you believe I would know?”

 

“I don’t,” he answers honestly. “But I’m out of ideas.”

 

Vastra taps her fingers against the arm of her chair. “What have you attempted so far?”

 

“I took her to Luna. She worked there, had a house there. I thought the familiar surroundings might help.” He sighs, shaking his head. “She looked at photographs and books. Dressed in her old clothes. Sodding weeks wasting away there and _nothing_.”

 

“Because Luna is not the familiarity she needs, Doctor.”

 

He straightens. “What?”

 

“She only had a few years as a professor on Luna before she went to the Library.” Vastra sighs patiently and he gets the distinct feeling she’s as exasperated by his cluelessness as he is. “A much bigger part of her life was spent traveling with you. Well, or in prison but I highly recommend you don’t take her _there_. River needs to resume a normal existence – normal for the two of you, at any rate – if she ever hopes to regain her memories.”

 

 

Of course.

 

River has never been cooped up in one place for so long a day in her life, not even when she was serving her sentence at Storm Cage. What in the buggering hell had made him think she could possibly regain even one memory sitting still? River is his other half, his better half. His equal. A rugged flower that only grows in foreign soil. Of course she needs to run.

 

Christ, he has gotten thick in his old age. Really fucking thick.

 

Vastra makes a smug, indelicate noise of agreement but he doesn’t pay her any mind – barely even notices he was talking aloud at all. The quickest way to get River back is to put her in the environment in which she always thrived. Traveling in the TARDIS with him – next stop everywhere.

  

He stews in silence, Vastra watching him in quiet amusement, until River and Jenny reappear from the kitchen with their tea and biscuits. River smiles at him as she slips onto the settee next to him and hearts suddenly full of hope, the Doctor smiles back.


	5. something wretched about this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He turns to face her with a scolding expression prepared but it falls away at the sight of her, flushed and grinning, the light of a cheap thrill in her gaze. There is something unmistakably River in her eyes.

“Voila!” He cringes, sticking out his tongue. “French on a Scottish tongue. Tastes disgusting.”

 

River peers around his shoulder through the open doors of the TARDIS, frowning at the bustling city laid out before them. Her brows lift as the scent of the nearby sea washes over them, mingling with the aroma of grilled meats and spices. “Where are we?”

 

“Hyspero,” he says, taking her hand. It’s still new, this handholding business, but he doesn’t mind so much. It’s almost pleasant but he imagines it has more to do with _whose_ hand he’s holding rather than the act itself. “Thought we might do a little shopping.”

 

The market stalls on Hyspero used to be one of River’s favorite places to browse. She’d drag him here for dig supplies, a new scarf, or a present for Amy’s birthday. She didn’t always pay for things but when she did she was an expert haggler. He’d loved to stand back and watch her wear down some poor, unsuspecting merchant. It seemed like the perfect place to begin their travels, familiar but without the threat of immediate danger. He isn’t sure she’s ready for that yet.

 

River looks intrigued as they step out of the TARDIS, her fingers laced tightly through his and her eyes wide as she takes everything in for the first time all over again. Pleased that she still likes the idea of the market even now, the Doctor allows himself to be led through the crowd without complaint. River tugs at his hand, smiling as she glances around, and he wonders if she notices the way her eyes are always scanning for a potential threat. He wonders if she’ll ever remember why she does it.

 

“Oh, look – jewelry!”

 

He stifles a smile. Some things about River never change.

 

He lets her drag him to the booth to have a look and only realizes how often they used to visit this very same stall when the merchant behind it lights up at the sight of River. He leaps to his feet, waving them over. “Mrs. Song! I was hoping to see you today.” He rubs his hands together gleefully, grinning as they reach him. “I’ve got something special I think you’ll appreciate.”

 

River blinks at him and glances uneasily at the Doctor.

 

“This is -” He furrows his brow, trying to remember the lad’s name. “The annoying overpriced one.” He snaps his fingers. “Kai. His name is Kai.”

 

Glancing up with an offended frown, Kai says, “Well of course I am. Who else would I -” He stops short, staring at the Doctor like he only just noticed him. His frown deepens and he looks at River, who still stares at him in quiet alarm. “Who’s the old man, hmm? Where’s the Doctor?”

 

“I am the Doctor,” he snaps, scowling.

 

“You can’t be!” Kai sniffs. “The Doctor is much younger than you. Very strange face. And he always wears a bowtie! You cannot be him.”

 

River holds up her wrist wordlessly, where their wedding bowtie is still wrapped in a neat bow. Kai stares at it. The Doctor offers him a smug look. “Same old me. New face.”

 

Kai studies him with a skeptical lift of one eyebrow. “Is it supposed to be an improvement?”

 

River snorts, eyes widening as she covers her mouth with one hand. “Sorry.”

 

The Doctor huffs. “Oh, sod off. Both of you.”

 

Kai grins.

 

Smiling a little now, River covers the bowtie on her wrist with her hand and looks at Kai with a gleam of curiosity all too familiar. “You said you had something to show me?”

 

Kai brightens, snapping his fingers. “Yes! Wait until you see it…” He trails off, whirling to rummage through the boxes behind him, muttering to himself.

 

River glances at the Doctor with a questioning smile. “We came here often, I assume?”

 

He shrugs, refusing to admit just how often River succeeded in coercing him into bringing her here. “Occasionally.”

 

Her smile only grows, damn her. “You spoiled me.”

 

“Did not.” He scowls at her raised eyebrow. “This body isn’t nearly so susceptible to your charms so don’t get any ideas.”

 

Her smile lingers like she knows as well as he does what a liar he is. And he hasn’t even taught her the rules again yet. “Wouldn’t dream of it, sweetie.”

 

His hearts skip a beat. _Sweetie_. She hasn’t called him that once since they found each other again and he finds himself studying her with his breath caught in his throat, searching her face for even a spark of recognition. There’s nothing, of course.

 

“Ah ha!” Kai whirls around with a triumphant smile, holding out a ring for River to take. It’s a dull silver, aged and scratched, with a green insignia. It isn’t exactly eye-catching but the Doctor freezes in place, staring at it with his mouth open. “No one seems to be able to translate the engraving but I thought you might be interested in trying -”

 

The Doctor snatches it from his loose grip, closing a tight fist over the ring before Kai can stop him. He ignores the younger man’s disapproving yelp, nails digging into his palms as he growls out, “Where did you get this?”

 

“Where I get all of my merchandise,” Kai says, still trying to take the ring back. The Doctor holds it out of his reach, unconvinced. “From my own travels.”

 

Reaching across the table, the Doctor uses his free hand to grasp Kai’s tunic in one fist, yanking him across the stall and rattling the wares on his table. “Who sold it to you? Tell me now.”

 

“I don’t know – dark hair, scary face, antiquated dress. She didn’t give me her name. Gave it to me in exchange for a vortex manipulator.” Kai struggles in the Doctor’s grip. “That piece is worth ten times what a manipulator is worth! Madwoman, I tell you. Now give it back, you haven’t paid for it yet!”

 

“How much do you want?”

 

Kai stops struggling long enough to look at River and the Doctor joins him, startled from his inner panic by River’s calm, no nonsense expression and the businesslike hand on her hip. He lets go of Kai, who stumbles back with a wrinkled tunic, meeting River’s stare with narrowed eyes. “What’ll you give me?”

 

“Ten credits.”

 

Eyes widening, Kai scoffs at her and reaches for the ring. “You insult me and my merchandise, Mrs. Song.”

 

The Doctor smacks Kai’s hand away, scowling. “Name your price.”

 

“At least fifty.”

 

It’s an offensive price for such a little trinket and in any other circumstances he’d toss the ring at Kai’s face and tell him to shove it up his arse. But this isn’t just any trinket. It had belonged to her once – or him, rather. The Master before he was Missy. When she regenerated, he doubts the ring suited her new, feminine sensibilities. She was never the sentimental type – obviously she’d traded it for a destructive toy instead.

 

The Doctor stares down at the Gallifreyan symbol for _Master_ and frowns. He knows she’s gone. He watched her die right in front of him and there is no doubt in his mind it had been for the best. She was too mad to be contained. Whatever remained of his childhood friend was long gone and most likely any hope of ever finding their home planet along with her. But this – this he could keep.

 

“Fine,” he agrees. “Fifty.”

 

River grumbles her disapproval next to him, apparently certain she could have secured them a much better deal. The Doctor ignores her, putting the ring on the table to rifle through his pockets. He doesn’t carry currency with him, never has, but–

 

“No psychic credits, Doctor.” Kai crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m not falling for that again.”

 

The Doctor glares. “And it only took you a hundred transactions to catch on. Clever lad.”

 

Kai glowers right back. “Come back when you have real credits or the ring goes to the next _paying_ customer.”

 

Without looking, the Doctor reaches for the ring at the very same moment Kai moves to snatch it back. Their hands bump and they both stop glaring at one another long enough to look at the space on the table where the ring should be.

 

 

Puzzled, Kai frowns at the empty space but the Doctor sighs and stares at the place beside him where River stood only moments ago, scrubbing a hand over his face in resignation. “Always such sticky fingers,” he grumbles fondly.

 

The words finally stir Kai into action and he leaps out from behind his booth, shouting, “Thief, thief! You are a dirty crook River Song!” He takes off through the crowded marketplace in hot pursuit of her and the Doctor has no choice but to follow. Kai will never catch her if she doesn’t want to be caught – at least if she’s anything like she used to be. If she is, the Doctor’s best bet for finding River is to let her find him first.

 

He loses sight of Kai quickly but he tries not to fret as he scans the market for any sign of River. He strolls along through the crowd with his hands in his pockets, a little anxious when he doesn’t see her and embarrassingly relieved when a small, strong hand grasps him by the elbow and yanks him into an alleyway. He turns to face her with a scolding expression prepared but it falls away at the sight of her, flushed and grinning, the light of a cheap thrill in her gaze. There is something unmistakably _River_ in her eyes.

 

Letting his gaze drop to the bundle of hand woven clothes in her arms, he says dryly, “If you wanted to go dress shopping, all you had to do was say so.”

 

“Oh shut up and put this on.” She tosses a tunic at him, already fumbling with her own disguise – a dress and a headscarf.

 

“What are you doing?” He asks, watching her wrap the scarf around her curls.

 

“I really don’t know,” she whispers and glances furtively out of the alleyway, peering around the corner. “But I got your trinket.” She turns to face him again, opening her palm with a flourish to reveal the Master’s ring.

 

He snatches it from her, frowning. “You stole it.”

 

She tucks an errant curl under her scarf and shrugs. “You wanted it. I got it for you.”

 

Huffing, the Doctor tucks the ring into his pocket and snaps, “You can’t just take things whenever you feel like it!”

 

“Apparently I can. You’re welcome, by the way.”

 

She offers him a smug look so reminiscent of her old self – the whole argument is entirely reminiscent of their old selves – that it takes him a moment to find his breath again and reply. “Are you ever going to grow up?”

 

“I don’t know.” She smiles. “Are you?”

 

He stifles a grin of his own, lifting a brow at her instead. “Not if I can help it.”

 

She offers him her hand. “Coast is clear. Shall we?”

 

He laces his fingers through hers and allows her to lead him once more into trouble.

 

-

 

River sleeps now more than she ever did. It probably has something or other to do with her ordeal – returning from the dead can be exhausting in his experience – but he still frets like an old hen. When he spends the better part of the morning waiting for her to emerge from her bedroom to no avail he abandons the control room and goes off in search of her, stomping through the TARDIS corridors in hopes the irritation will mask his glaring concern. Honestly, it’s pathetic. She’s an amnesiac, not a glass figurine.

 

Reaching their bedroom – the one he hasn’t ventured into since her nightmares that very first stay on the TARDIS – he throws open the door with a loud, “Apparently humans waste half their lives sleeping but you’re only half human so -” He trails off, staring at the empty bed. A cursory glance around the rest of the room and a peek into the wardrobe reveals River isn’t here at all.

 

His inner mother hen is working up a good panic.

 

Standing in the middle of their bedroom, the Doctor contemplates the unmade bed, the stack of scribbled notes on the bedside table, the photographs tacked to the vanity mirror, and tries to think like his wife. If he were an amnesiac River Song, where would he go? Not the pool. The humid air is hell on her hair. The pool hall if she was a bit younger. Possibly the armory if she knew she had one but he hadn’t bothered to show her. Rassilon knows what havoc a weapon in hand would wreak on her long buried programming.

 

“Sod it.” He glances at the ceiling with a scowl. “A little help from the sentient ship wouldn’t be amiss, you know.”

 

The Old Girl hums softly and he tilts his head, listening.

 

“Ah,” he mutters. “The library. Thought she’d be sick of them by now.”

 

He wastes no time in walking swiftly out of their bedroom and all the memories it still holds, heading straight for the library. It might have been enough once upon a time to know where she was and he might have left her to it, fiddled with the TARDIS for a bit and waited for her to come to him. He finds, much to his dismay, that he simply cannot stay away from her this go round. More than a few hours is too much of her absence to bear and he blames it on losing her. It’s made him a fretful old man, impatiently waiting to see her again.

 

Too much time away from her and the universe might realize it made a mistake. True, she doesn’t have her memory but it’s still more than he deserves. He won’t relinquish this without a bastard of a fight.

 

The Doctor strolls into the library and finds River sitting at one of the study tables she used to commandeer in university, her books and notes spread out all around her. He’d hovered then too, he remembers, eager for her attention. She’d had to use another entire table to hold all the teacups he kept bringing her.

 

As he approaches, he feels a staggering sense of déjà vu. River sits with her hair pulled up on top of her head, pencil stuck behind her ear and another in her hand. There are notes spread across the table and one of the reading lamps switched on to illuminate whatever she studies. In her hands is a small book and once the Doctor is close enough to see the color of it, he stops in his tracks.

 

 

TARDIS blue.

 

He inhales so sharply it catches River’s attention and she jumps, whirling to face him with her pencil clutched in her hand like a dagger. He wonders faintly if she still remembers how to kill a man with it. The book is on full display now, pressed protectively against her chest, and he doesn’t know if he’s relieved or further enraged to find that it isn’t her diary – it’s his.

 

“What are you doing with that?”

 

The words come out sharper, harsher, than he’d intended. River recoils, looking back at her notes. “I was trying to – the language looked familiar. I think I knew it once. I still remember it a little. I’m trying to translate.”

 

“That isn’t a book.”

 

“I know.”

 

“It’s a diary.”

 

Her eyes slide guiltily away from him once again. “I know.”

 

He grits his teeth. “Do you know it’s mine?”

 

River strokes a gentle fingertip over the book’s spine and says softly, “You loved your wife very much. I don’t think I realized -”

 

Striding forward, the Doctor snatches the diary from her grasp and River doesn’t try to protest, watching him sadly as he tucks it into his coat pocket. “You had no _right_.”

 

Her eyes narrow and she frowns at him. “I didn’t know what it was at first but I had every right. It’s about me! About our marriage. It could help my memory -”

 

“Yes,” he snaps, feeling exposed. “At the expense of my privacy.”

 

“What are you so angry about?” River gets to her feet, her hands balled into fists but her eyes soft, like she can’t decide if she wants to hold him or hit him. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of in there -”

 

“Then you didn’t read far enough.” He glares, trembling hand curling around the book in his pocket as he takes a step back, turning on his heel. “Next time, find a real book to read and mind your own fucking business.”

 

He strides out of the library and hides in the console room for the rest of the day, sitting in his chair and staring at the thin blue book, hands white-knuckled around the binding. River doesn’t try to find him and the next morning at breakfast, they continue on as though the incident had never occurred at all. River doesn’t ask about his diary again and he doesn’t mention that she has one of her own.

 

-

 

“I can’t believe you broke the override key!”

 

“Me? You’re the one who wanted to meet Sacagawea!”

 

“Yes and where are we? In the middle of a bloody war between feuding earth colonies in the year 2360!”

 

The Doctor growls at his wife over the smoking controls of the war vessel’s engine room and snaps, “I told you, it isn’t my fault! She takes me where I need to go!”

  
“Isn’t that a fine way to shirk responsibility,” River grumbles, glaring right back at him. “Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.”

 

The Doctor stares at her, hands hovering frozen over the controls, desperately fighting the giddy smile that always looks wrong on this face. It isn’t like having River back, not really. The woman she is now is just as clever, just as funny, just as kind, but there is something essentially River missing. He’s learning to enjoy her just the same. No matter the incarnation, having River by his side, bickering with him, makes everything better.

 

He forces a scowl. “Can we save the domestic until after I’ve stopped these pudding brains from killing an entire colony? This isn’t as effortless as I make it look.”

 

River rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest, leaning against the wall opposite to watch him work. “Is this what you do then? Run about the universe playing the dashing hero?”

 

The Doctor looks up, brows raised. “You think I’m dashing?” River offers him a scathing look and he scowls. “I do other things. Sometimes I bowl. A few months ago I followed Lord Byron around Venice and heckled him.”

 

Stifling a smile, River shakes her head and asks, “Why?”

 

He shrugs. “He’s an arrogant tosspot.”

 

Most of his attention remains focused on the task at hand, trying to break past the computer’s security to stop the countdown – set to blast a devastating missile into the neighboring campsite – but a small part of his brain cannot tear itself away from what he sees in the corner of his eye. River, hand on her hip, fingers probably itching for a gun she doesn’t know she always kept there. River, watching him with that skeptical little crease between her eyebrows.

 

He sighs, fingers flying rapidly over the keys. “The idiot had a habit of writing poetry about another man’s wife. Do you remember She Walks In Beauty?”

 

“Yes, why?” She leans in closer. “Who was it about?”

 

He looks up, eyeing her meaningfully.

 

River flushes and if he weren’t a wee bit busy at the moment, he would have paused to enjoy the sight of it. She hasn’t blushed at him since her university days. Feeling smug, he turns his attention back to the computer and curses when he sees that it still refuses to let him past the security shields.

 

_“Missile launch in 40 seconds.”_

 

He fishes his sonic out of his pocket and aims it at the computer. It sparks and the screen flickers. The request for the code remains. With a growl, he whirls on his heel and directs his attention to the war general, looking furious but snug in his bindings. River had done a delightful job on those knots.

 

“Tell me the passcode.”

 

The General clenches his jaw and sneers, an angry flush creeping its way up his neck and the apples of his meaty cheeks. “I will not. This must be done, Doctor. For the good of my people.”

 

The Doctor advances on him, fists clenched at his sides, and only feels encouraged when the General refuses to flinch away from him. “The good of your people is not _genocide_.”

 

“It is when it will finally put an end to this war!” The General strains against his bindings, grunting and sweating like a pig. The Doctor doesn’t bother hiding his revulsion, lip curling up as he stares the man down. “This feud has reached its peak, Doctor. If we don’t end them, they will end us.”

 

Around them, the countdown echoes.

 

_“Missile launch in 30 seconds.”_

 

“We can start over, rebuild our city -”

 

“Yes,” the Doctor snarls, grasping the man by the front of his shirt. “On the bodies of everyone you slaughtered -”

 

His eyes flicker but the General stiffens his upper lip and says, “Sacrifices must be made. I will not let my people down!”

 

“Then give me the passcode!”

 

_“Missile launch in 20 seconds.”_

 

“This is war, Doctor.” Unflinching under the heavy weight of the Doctor’s gaze, the General repeats, “Sacrifices must be made.”

 

“And you get to make that decision, do you?” The Doctor tightens his grip on the General’s collar, enjoying the way his eyes widen in alarm. He leans in close, nose brushing his and blue eyes narrowing dangerously. “You get to play God here in your little bunker with your fucking death toys?”

 

The General wheezes, face flushing.

 

The Doctor closes his fist tighter around his collar, pulling. “Well I won’t let you. Or anyone else. Not ever again, not as long as I’m walking this pathetic excuse for a universe -”

 

_“Missile launch in 10 seconds.”_

 

Collar pulled tight in his white-knuckled fist, the Doctor keeps his cold, calculating gaze on the wheezing General. “Give me the  passcode or I swear to every dead god in the galaxy I will squeeze every breath out of your fleshy body and the universe will be better for it -”

 

“So only you get to play God, is that it?”

 

He freezes at the sound of River’s voice, turning his head the moment he feels her gentle hand on his shoulder. “People are going to die-”

 

“And you want to add to the body count?”

 

“Of course not -”

 

“Then let go, sweetie.”

 

“The countdown -”’

 

“I don’t hear a countdown, do you?”

 

He frowns, fingers loosening slightly around the General’s collar as he listens. Silence. Utter and complete silence. Had he missed the last ten seconds somehow? Had the missile already launched? Christ, all those people –

 

River sighs, patting his shoulder. “Stop panicking, I hacked into the computer while you were busy throwing a tantrum.”

 

Releasing the General entirely and ignoring the man’s gasping breaths, the Doctor whirls to face her and finds his wife peering up at him smugly, her eyes dancing. He gapes. “How did you -”

 

She shrugs lightly and taps her temple. “Lots of things tumbling around up there. Sometimes I don’t even know I know things until I need them.”

 

“You are -” The Doctor deflates, trailing off as he stares at River. His hands shake and there is a persistent lump in his throat. She had saved him, saved everyone – again. She’s always doing that, even now, when she can’t remember why. “A complete show off."

 

She preens like she knows he means _absolutely_ _brilliant_.

 

Overcome with the desperate urge to snog the daylights out of his wife, the Doctor shoves his trembling hands into his pockets and turns on the General, forcing a smirk. “Untie him, River. He needs to prepare his people for peace negotiations.”

 

“Perhaps over tea,” River suggests, moving to do as he’d asked. She winks up at the blustering General. “I’ve heard chamomile can be very soothing.”

 

“Excellent, dear.” The Doctor arches an eyebrow at the General. “Any biscuits in this hellhole?”

 

-

 

“Why are they following us?”

 

“They’ve got two heads.”

 

“So?”

 

The Doctor glances at River, widening his eyes mockingly. “We’ve got one each. We’re practically a side show attraction.” Since the moment they stepped out of the TARDIS and began their stroll through the Aplan village, a herd of sticky children has trailed behind them, vying for their attention. He feels a bit like Gandalf wading through hobbits. “Just ignore them. The novelty will wear off eventually.”

 

River falls silent for a grand total of five seconds before she sighs, pushes back her hair and asks, “Are you certain you remember where it is?”

 

The Doctor bites back a sigh. “Of course I remember. I’m not the amnesiac in this relationship.”

 

“It’s not as if I’m doing it on purpose, you know.” She frowns at him, neatly stepping around a set of two-headed twins in her path. “I _want_ to remember.”

 

“Why do you think I brought you here?” He asks, glancing away guiltily. Every time she looks at him like that and reminds him yet again of how much she wants to know who she was, his thoughts inevitably fall to the diary he still keeps hidden away. It could help her remember. Then again, it might not. It might just cause her to hate him, to demand that he take her home and never come back again. He can’t – won’t – take that chance. Whether she is the River he remembers or not, he can’t lose her again. “We had our fifth date at a restaurant on this planet. I spilled wine down your dress and you stripped out of it right in front of everyone. Took a week to stop blushing.”

 

River laughs at his scowling face, looking delighted as her shoulder bumps his. “Did I enjoy being scandalous?”

 

“You lived for it, dear,” he mutters, distracted by a tugging at his trouser leg. He glances down with a fierce expression and a bitten off, “What?”

 

Unaffected by his grumpy façade, the two-headed boy – boys? – grins shyly up at him and simply says, “Hi.”

 

The Doctor sighs. “Bugger off, lad. I’m busy.” With a giggle, the boy darts around him and tumbles right into River’s side, arms around her legs. “Friendly sprog,” he comments dryly, watching River peer down at the boy cautiously.

 

She hesitantly places a hand atop one of the boy’s heads and pats at it like she might a rabid animal. The boy tips his heads up and grins at her. River smiles slowly back. “Hand it over, Junior.”

 

The Doctor watches, puzzled, as the kid pouts at her.

 

River holds out her hand, palm up. “Give it back and I promise he’ll show you a magic trick.”

 

The kid lights up and the rest of the children around them cheer, jumping up and down excitedly. The Doctor whirls on her with a frown. “I’m not a ruddy magician, River.”

 

She arches an eyebrow, looking him over. “You can’t possibly dress like that and not know at least one magic trick.” He huffs, watching her waggle her fingers expectantly at the boy. He sighs and drops something into her palm. River pats him on the head again and turns to the Doctor, pushing something into his hand.

 

He opens his fingers and gapes down at the Master’s ring. “The brat pickpocketed me!”

 

The children giggle.

 

River smirks at him. “Go on then.”

 

He blinks. “Go on what?”

 

“I promised them a magic trick.”

 

He scowls, stuffing the ring back into his pocket with a warning glance at the little demons underfoot. “You do it then.”

 

“We’ll never find the restaurant if they keep following us.” She taps her foot impatiently, arms crossed distractingly over her chest. The Doctor clenches his jaw and keeps his eyes on her face. “Do something useful with your magic wand and distract them.”

 

“First of all, it’s not a magic wand. It’s a screwdriver,” he says, already fishing for it in his jacket pocket. “And second of all, you’ve found it plenty useful in the past.”

 

River rolls her eyes at him. “Not in front of the children, sweetie.”

 

Hmm. If she had her memory, that bit of innuendo would have impressed her. Bizarrely, the Doctor finds that is exactly what he wants. He wants this new River to be just as impressed by him as the old one had been. Gazing out over the sea of two-headed tykes, towering over all of them, the Doctor thinks inexplicably of Gandalf again.

 

With a smirk, he raises his sonic overhead, pointing and thinking.

 

A blast and a crackle overhead makes the children shriek. The noise is quickly followed by a shower of color that explodes in the twilight and rains down on them. Another follows, then another, each in a different but equally brilliant shade. The children cheer, grinning faces practically glowing as they point and shout, but the Doctor pays no mind to the excited crowd or the fireworks lighting up the sky.

 

He watches River tip her head back to watch, laughing brightly, curls brushing her shoulders. Her face is lit up in shades of red and purple and blue and he has never seen her look more serene. He wonders idly if having her memories taken away had been a gift for both of them. A chance to start over, unencumbered by all of the old nonsense.

 

Vastra had been right, as always. It doesn’t matter if River ever remembers a thing. All this time he’s been clinging to who she used to be, talking about her and thinking about her like she was some other person, still dead and gone. She’s standing beside him right now with fireworks reflected in her eyes and a smile rounding the flushed apples of her cheeks. The kiss they had shared weeks ago still burns on his lips. She’s alive and whole and the rest of it just doesn’t sodding well matter any more.

 

His wife turns to look at him as a shower of orange sparkles rains down from the sky and when their eyes meet, the years without her seem a lifetime ago. Inconsequential.

 

River smiles.

 

The Doctor feels his hearts flutter right out of his chest and into the palm of her hand, snug and safe, right where they’ve always belonged.


	6. something so precious about this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What the hell was that?”
> 
> He glares at her. “That was you ruining another perfectly nice evening with your big fat mouth.”
> 
> Her hand twitches like she wants to slap him and even as he narrows his eyes at her in warning, some part of him wishes she would do it. She hisses a breath through her teeth and grits out, “I just took out an entire fleet of Sontarans by myself in an evening gown and without a weapon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! Thank you all so much for your feedback and support! I hope you like the ending:)

The bright flare of a plasma blast soars over his shoulder. The Doctor ducks just in time to avoid another shot aimed right at his head. He can hear River behind him, disarming them one after another, and waves his sonic aimlessly over his shoulder in a vain effort to assist. The gunfire stops abruptly and he staggers the rest of the way to the TARDIS with River on his heels. He tumbles through the doors and she slams them shut behind her, collapsing against them with a ragged sigh, the skirts of her elaborate gown billowing out around her.

 

He allows himself a total of three seconds to catch his breath before he pushes away from the doors and stomps toward the console. Scowling to himself, he mutters under his breath, “Even without a sodding memory, you can’t resist taunting Sontarans, can you?”

 

River doesn’t answer but he doesn’t need her to, yanking the lever to send them hurtling into the vortex as he works himself into a proper tirade. She interrupts him before he can launch into it, stalking around the console breathless and singed, fire in her eyes – like she’s the one with the right to be furious instead of him. “What the hell was that?”

 

He glares at her. “That was you ruining another perfectly nice evening with your big fat mouth.”

 

Her hand twitches like she wants to slap him and even as he narrows his eyes at her in warning, some part of him wishes she would do it. She hisses a breath through her teeth and grits out, “I just took out an entire fleet of Sontarans by myself in an evening gown and _without a weapon_.”

 

He frowns. “I helped!”

 

“You had a screwdriver,” she snaps. “You may as well have waved a banana about.”

 

He opens his mouth to violently protest but River grips the lapel of his coat and pins him against the console, the material of her ball gown crinkling between them. He can tell by the angry line of her mouth and the tightness around her eyes that she isn’t trying to turn him on but his pathetic, eager hearts pick up speed anyway. It’s been far too long. He swallows, allowing her to keep him in place as he meets bewildered green eyes.

 

“How did I know what to do? I fought like -” Her voice trembles and she sighs, obviously annoyed with her traitorous emotions. He knows the feeling. “What am I?”

 

He blinks at her, the temptation of her curves pressed all against him suddenly vanishing at the pain evident on her face. “You’re like me.” He takes her hands in his, pressing them over his hearts. He places his palm against her chest, feeling the twin beat of her hearts under his touch. “We’re the same, you and I.”

 

“I know that I’m – but you don’t fight like that. Like it’s in your blood. You don’t know how. But I do.” She shakes her head, her eyes welling up. “Sometimes, when I look at you, I have these thoughts… I’ve come up with four hundred seventy-eight ways to kill you since last week.”

 

“That’s all?” He tuts, secretly pleased – she truly is in there somewhere, his wee psychopath. “River, you’re slipping.”

 

She blinks at him. “What?”

 

He can’t tell her. There is no way in this universe or any other that he could possibly find the courage to look into her eyes and tell her every way he has ruined her life, every horror she has been through because of the fear he caused everywhere he went, because he got too big for his sodding britches and thought a Time Lord could play God. Without her memories of Berlin and all their time together since, she would hate him. But letting her wonder isn’t an option either. So he’ll let her explain it to herself.

 

“With me.” The Doctor keeps a tight hold on her hand and starts off down the corridor, feeling rather like a man walking to meet his doom. Rassilon knows what River wrote about him in that thing. He certainly made enough mistakes during their marriage. It was too much to ask for a second chance, he supposes, free from the shackles of his other self’s sins.

 

River follows only a few steps before she starts resisting. “Where are we going?”

 

“You want answers,” he says gruffly. “I’m giving them to you.”

 

Curious to her very core, River lets him lead her along without further complaint, hitching up her skirts and following him down endless corridors until they finally stumble upon his study. He hardly uses it any more, preferring instead to sit in the leather chair in the control room, surrounded by the console lights and his bookshelves. This study holds too many memories.

 

He fishes out the key and unlocks the door, stepping hesitantly into his old study. The fire in the hearth that used to warm the whole room has long since gone out but he watches in silence as the Old Girl stokes the ashes into flame once more, bringing warmth and light to the musty place. River steps around him and approaches the desk with a frown. Swiping a finger over the dusty surface, she asks, “What answers could possibly be -”

 

The Doctor nudges her impatiently out of the way, using the same key he had unlocked the door with to unlock the sole drawer in the antique desk. It doesn’t pop open with the ease it used to but with a gentle tug and a creak of old hinges, it reveals exactly what he’s looking for. His fingers stroke over the rough surface as he picks it up and his trembling hearts leap into his throat at the familiar binding. After all this time, it still feels a little forbidden to even touch it. He expects River to raise an eyebrow and scoff when he holds it out to her but she only stares at it, a soft sheen in her eyes as she closes her fingers around the book. Somewhere inside, some part of her understands.

 

“Everything you want to know is in there.”

 

She swallows thickly, refusing to take her eyes from the bright blue cover. “What is it?”

 

“Your diary.”

 

-

 

She’s been in his study for hours. He’d left her alone to peruse her diary but he hadn’t gone far, camping out in the corridor like the lovesick old man he is, waiting for her to open the door and order him away, armed with the knowledge that the way she’d come into this world and the way she’d gone out of it had been his fault alone. He waits all night but River doesn’t emerge. He can’t even hear her moving about but he knows she’s reading. Every now and then, he’ll catch the faint sound of rustling pages. His knees are numb and his back aches but he stays there on the floor, waiting for her to condemn him, tossing the Master’s ring anxiously between his hands.

 

He’s slouched against the wall with his head bowed when he finally hears movement from inside the study. Jolted into action, the Doctor stumbles to his feet, ignoring the pins and needles in his extremities as he races to the control room with as much dignity as he can muster. It’s one thing to sit outside her door waiting for her all night but quite another to let her catch him at it.

 

By the time he hears her footsteps echoing in the corridor outside the control room, he’s leaning against the console with his arms crossed, determined to present a cool and detached front. He catches a glimpse of his reflection in the console and cringes, smoothing a hand over his gray hair, mussed from running worried fingers through it.

 

River appears in the doorway and he offers her a blithe smile, hoping he looks like he hasn’t been hovering outside her door all night. The TARDIS must have provided her with new clothes because she isn’t wearing the ball gown any longer. Her eyes are tired and rimmed red but when they lock onto his the moment he looks up, he cannot read her for the life of him. Which is probably why when she walks right up to him, the slap comes as a bit of a surprise.

 

The sound of her palm meeting his cheek rings in his ears and he flexes his jaw against the sharp sting, wincing. He might have deserved that but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t complain anyway. At least, he would if River would give him the chance. She grasps him by the collar of his rumpled shirt and yanks him down to her, kissing him with such ferocious need it makes his knees tremble. He groans into her mouth, gripping the back of her head as their teeth clash and their lips bruise. Trust River to make a kiss as violent as any slap.

 

She breaks away first, breathing hard as she lets go of his shirt and stumbles back a step. The Doctor releases an unsteady breath and leans against the console behind him, his eyes searching her face desperately. “Remember something, dear?”

 

She clenches her jaw. “No.”

 

He feels his hearts sink and struggles not to deflate outright, watching her hesitantly. “Oh.”

 

“Stop looking at me like that.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Like I’m going to hit you again.”

 

He raises his brows. “Are you?”

 

Her eyes soften and she bites her lip, shaking her head once. “I should but… have you read it?”

 

“What?”

 

“My diary.”

 

“No.” He swallows. “I couldn’t – no.”

 

River tilts her head, green eyes watching him with a soft tenderness so reminiscent of his wife he feels a lump form in his throat. “You were loved, you know. She never blamed you for any of it, not even on her worst days.” She shrugs, dropping her gaze to the bowtie around her wrist. “If she could forgive you then I suppose I’ll have to forgive you too.”

 

He blinks, dropping his gaze to his shoes, and grits his teeth, resolute that she will not see his eyes water with relief. “Generous of you,” he says instead, grateful when his voice gives off just the right amount of gruff insincerity to make her huff in annoyance. He works his jaw in silence for a moment, clearing his throat before he finally looks up again. “So what now?”

 

Reaching behind her, River pulls her diary from her back pocket with a hopeful smile. “I have a request.”

 

-

 

They start with Berlin.

 

He hovers just outside the TARDIS, arms crossed over his chest as he watches her stand in the middle of the hall and stare. Bowtie and his Ponds just left a few moments ago to rush young Mels off to the Sisters of the Infinite Schism. The effects of her noble sacrifice still linger in the air. He closes his eyes and inhales the scent of their mingled regeneration energy.

 

When he looks at River again, she’s smiling like she can sense it too. “So this is it,” she says, glancing over her shoulder at him. “Where we first met.”

 

He purses his lips, glancing around the empty hall like it isn’t bringing old memories flooding back with startling clarity. “Seemed bigger then.”

 

“It always seems bigger than it really is to you lot.” She smirks but he can’t be bothered to glare at her, too intent on watching her pick her way through the rubble toward the steps. She sits down right where he told her he loved her, right where he died and she breathed life into him again. She was always doing that. “Are you going to stand there gaping or are you going to sit with me?”

 

River pats the space next to her with an impatient hand and he scowls, pushing away from the TARDIS to join her. “I still don’t understand what this little journey of self discovery is supposed to accomplish.”

 

“Visiting our old haunts could jar my memory.” River frowns at him, cradling her diary close to her chest. “And if it doesn’t, I’d like to at least be capable of picturing all the places this body has been. Even if I’m stuck never truly remembering.”

 

He sighs through his nose, elbows on his knees as he stares out at the overturned tables and chairs; the mess Mels had left in her wake. For him and for the River sitting beside him now, it happened an age ago. So much has transpired since then he finds himself at once inexplicably jealous of the Doctor who just left cradling his unconscious future bride in his arms and not envying him at all – that him had no idea what was to come. He hadn’t known River would find her way back to him. He hadn’t known the universe would give him another chance to do things right.

 

Instead of saying any of this to River, he looks at her and asks, “When can we leave?”

 

“Shut up.”

 

River doesn’t glance at him, rifling through the first few pages of her diary, angling it away from him like there might still be something in there he shouldn’t see. He rolls his eyes and lets her hide her scribbles. They sit in silence for a few moments, River brooding over her diary pages and the Doctor trying to pretend he isn’t anxious to escape the memories of this place.

 

“I gave him my lives and he left me this book.” The sudden sound of River’s voice in the echoing silence startles him into glancing at her and his eyes widen when he sees that she’s reading from one of the pages in her diary. “At first glance, it’s not exactly what I’d call a fair trade.”

 

He grumbles under his breath but River lays a quelling hand on his arm, fingers curling around his wrist gently. He settles, listening with his hearts in his throat.

 

“When I was a little girl, I used to dream about someone coming to save me from the monsters, from the voices in my head. No one ever did until today. But it wasn’t him. It was me. He looked at me like I mattered and for the first time in my life the voices were quiet. I could hear what I wanted. So I chose it. I chose him.” River pauses, stroking her fingertips over brittle pages reverently. “It wasn’t just a book he gave me in exchange for my lives. It was my freedom. A trade I would make a hundred times over. Someday I might just tell him.”

 

The Doctor blinks hard and studies his shoes, determined not to meet her eyes until his own aren’t quite so watery. He swallows around the lump in his throat and grits his teeth, aching for the woman who had written those words.

 

River nudges him gently. “Did she? Tell you, I mean.”

 

He nods, clearing his throat. “She – you – just did.”

 

Her eyes soften and River looks at him with a soft smile, apparently grateful for the lack of distinction he placed between the two. Closing the book quietly, she tucks it away and out of sight, rubbing her hands over her thighs. “We can go now, if you like.”

 

The Doctor breathes in the regeneration energy still hovering in the air around them and shakes his head, letting his shoulder brush hers. “In a minute.”

 

-

 

There are far too many versions of themselves running around Calderon Beta on the night of their honeymoon so he lands them the night after. The stars aren’t nearly as bright but River doesn’t seem to mind, stepping out of the lift with an eager grin. She looks just as excited and full of wonder as she had the first time. It’s damn near impossible not to smile right back at her.

 

She bypasses the benches and chairs and manmade overlooks complete with telescopes for viewing the stars, choosing a sturdy branch instead, and he wonders if her diary had mentioned where she liked to sit or if some things about River Song truly never changed. She settles onto the branch and swings her legs over the side, looking out over the amalgamation of chippie shops below with her smile crinkling her eyes.

 

The Doctor takes the spot next to her, balancing a paper plate of greasy chips in one hand. River reaches for them the moment he settles but he swats her away, glaring. “You could have gotten your own, you know.”

 

“You’ll never be able to finish them by yourself,” she reasons, stealing a chip despite his best efforts. “Look at you. All skin and bones. Seriously, I bet I could count your ribs.”

 

He scowls, shooing her away when she prods at his side. “Could not.”

 

“Take off your shirt and let’s find out.”

 

His stomach churns at the enticing idea. With her memories or without them, she is undeniably River and her body calls to him, tempts and beguiles him – but he’s been letting her determine their boundaries, for her benefit and his own. He hardly remembers what to do with his hands any more, hugging makes his skin crawl, but there are still days when it is all he can do not to reach out and touch her. He eyes her for a moment, decides she doesn’t really mean it, and mutters, “Sod off.”

 

River pops another chip into her mouth, watching him scoot away from her. “Not going to reenact our honeymoon up here then?” She sighs, wiping her greasy fingers on her jeans before reaching for her diary. “I suppose I’ll just have to relive the tale.” She lifts her head to look at him with a smirk and a raised brow. “And I was very thorough.”

 

He swallows, clenching his hands into fists at his side. “What are you doing?”

 

She ignores him, rifling through pages with a thoughtful hum. “Ah, here it is.”

 

“River -”

 

“He touched me in a way no man has ever touched me before, like he couldn’t quite believe he was allowed. I’ve never felt so cherished or so wanton. Everywhere his clever hands stroked left fire under my skin. A fire only he could quench -”

 

“River,” he grinds out, feeling flush under his collar.

 

She smirks and keeps her eyes on the page, skimming a few lines. “His fingers slid beneath my dress and up my thigh -”

 

“Christ, would you shut it!” He snaps, refusing to acknowledge the blush creeping up his neck. He didn’t know this body _could_ blush. He snatches the diary from her hands, skimming the entry she’d been reading from with a scowl. Instead of finding a detailed, smutty account of the first night of their honeymoon, he finds only:

 

_More stars in one sky that any moment in history. I hardly noticed. Himself was very pretty in the starlight and what better time to count the freckles on his chest or discover that little spot behind his ear that makes him giggle and writhe when I stroke it with my tongue? Must remember for future occasions. Perfect night. Adoring new husband. What a lucky girl I am._

 

He bites his tongue against a wave of longing and looks up from the page with an expression caught somewhere between exasperation and pride. “You’re a bloody menace.”

 

Bathed in starlight, River steals back her diary and another chip.

 

This time, he doesn’t try to stop her.

 

-

 

The timelines around New York are still fragile but he manages to land safely half a century after Amy and Rory are buried. He stands silently beside River at their gravestone, his jaw clenched tightly and a bouquet of sunflowers clutched in one fist.

 

River’s hands tremble around the binding of her diary and her voice does much the same as she begins to read. “I told her to go and now I’ve lost them both. I think I’m losing him too. I can feel him pulling away. I can feel our time together slipping through my fingers. There’s never enough.”

 

She closes the book and he wishes not for the first time that he could ask forgiveness for things she doesn’t remember. He swallows back apologies that would mean nothing to her and crouches to lay the flowers at the foot of the grave, letting his fingers linger briefly over familiar names etched into stone.

 

“It wasn’t easy for her, you know.” His thumb rubs over _Amelia_ again and again. “Leaving you.”

 

“Or you, I imagine.” Standing beside him, River presses a hand to his shoulder and says, “It hardly matters. I can’t even remember saying goodbye.”

 

He closes his eyes, overcome with the sick sensation of déjà vu. “It matters.”

 

River takes his hand and pulls him to his feet. Fingers laced between them, they walk to the TARDIS together and neither of them looks back.

 

-

 

It would have felt wrong to come back to Lake Silencio without a picnic basket. He helps River pack all of her favorite foods, sneaking in the ones she doesn’t know she likes yet. The beach is eerily quiet when they step out of the TARDIS. They’re the only ones for miles and miles. The sun shines bright and hot on their faces and for a moment, he can almost convince himself an astronaut is about to rise from the lake and level a weapon at him.

 

He bites his tongue and busies himself with spreading out a blanket over the sand in an effort to keep his eyes off the shoreline but River has never been as cowardly as he. She stares down at the water’s edge with a quiet intensity he hasn’t seen since her battle days. Finally, after he has the blanket settled and the food unpacked, she turns away from the water with a barely visible shudder.

 

She’s quiet as he pours the wine, tracing her fingertips over the cover of her diary with a thoughtful little wrinkle between her brows. He nudges her hand with a glass, watching her expression clear as she finally looks up at him and accepts her drink. “Alright?” He isn’t used to asking but he should probably get into the habit again. So many things fell away with this regeneration, things he never thought he would need again. Of course River would turn up and prove him wrong.

 

She nods, attempting a smile before she ducks her head and sips her wine. “This is the last stop on the grand tour. Funny, I thought something somewhere would have felt familiar.” She looks at him with pained eyes, made all the more brilliant by the sunlight reflected in them. “Nothing feels right except for you and your ship.”

 

The Doctor watches her study the book in her lap and wonders if it makes him a selfish bastard when some part of him thrills to know even with a new face, he is a place of familiarity and comfort to her. Fuck it. He’s always been a selfish bastard. This body is just a touch more willing to embrace the notion.

 

River sighs, turning once more to look out at the water. “Thoughts of this place kept her up at night.”

 

It unsettles him, the way she talks about River like she’s someone else but then, up until recently that’s exactly what he’d been doing. Always learning all the wrong things from him, his River. He struggles to ignore the unease in his stomach and swirls a fingertip over the rim of his glass.

 

“I read her entry about what happened here over and over until I could recite it from memory but not once did it ever feel real. It was like something that happened to someone else, like some horrible chapter in a book. I felt nothing. But she did. She felt so much guilt. I -”

 

She stops abruptly, swallowing, and turns to look at him with shining eyes.

 

He isn’t good at this sort of thing any more. He doesn’t know how to console her, how to make everything better with a goofy smile and an awful hat the way he always did before. He has nothing now but fumbling hands that still ache to touch her and gruff words hiding the affection he truly feels, a face that’s still getting used to smiling. The Doctor scratches his chin and licks his lips, hoping the right words will come to him. “River -”

 

Her trembling hands on his face stall the words in his throat and he only has time to blink at her before she’s on her knees and tugging him close, her lips soft and insistent against his own. Tender words and her favorite tea he may have forgotten but never once did the Doctor ever forget how to touch his wife. He cradles her jaw in his hand and fists her hair in the other, his mouth sliding roughly against hers.

 

She breaks from him with a ragged breath but she doesn’t move away or release him so he dips his head, brushing his mouth hotly across her jaw and down her throat, struggling to keep the screaming _want_ inside him in check. River sighs against him, hands leaving his face to grip the front of his shirt. “I want to make a new memory of this place,” she says softly, finally pulling away to look him in the eye. “I don’t want it to haunt her any more.”

 

He stares at her, lips parted and hands still gripping her hips. River blinks up at him hopefully, her lashes damp and tears clinging to the corners of her eyes. She looks at him like despite everything, he might turn her away. Like he could possibly resist her.

 

His hand rakes through her curls, his fingers getting caught in spiraling tangles, and River tilts her head into his touch with a soft, trusting smile. He feels his hearts swell in his chest. She has trusted him since nearly the moment she woke, without knowing anything about him, only knowing the certainty in her own hearts. His River, always ready to accept and to love, even when no one has ever done the same for her, even when she can’t quite remember why. And he loves her too, memories intact or not. He loves her now with as much desperate, possessive ferocity he felt when he married her. He’s just an old, oblivious bampot who took far too long to figure it out.

 

“I’m not sure I remember how to do this,” he confesses, his nose bumping softly against hers as he wraps an arm around her waist and draws her in close. “It’s been a while.”

 

“Surely there’s been someone else since me.” River presses her lips beneath his jaw and he shudders. “It’s been a thousand years.”

 

The Doctor stiffens, swallowing hard. River hears it, turning her attentions from his throat to pull away and watch him cautiously. He doesn’t meet her gaze, staring at the lake over her shoulder as he says, “I didn’t want anyone else.”

 

Her hand presses softly against his cheek, fingers sliding swiftly down to his jaw and directing his attention back to her, forcing his eyes away from the sparkling water to finally look at her. Her smile is soft and full of understanding, just a touch delighted. Always the possessive sort. “Then we’ll learn again together.”

 

 There’s plenty of room on the picnic blanket to spread her out beneath him and that’s exactly what the Doctor does. He takes his time once her clothes are piled on the sand next to them and makes sure to leave the bowtie around her wrist. River looks like a sun goddess, tanned skin glowing in the light and her hair fanned out around her, the blue sky reflected in her eyes as she looks up at him. He trails his mouth over her collarbone and between her breasts, tongue slipping out to taste her skin.

 

She shivers, her hands settling hesitantly on his shoulders. “You’re overdressed.”

 

He snorts, wrestling out of his coat and tossing it carelessly aside. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees something shiny fall from one of his pockets but he pays it no mind, throwing the rest of his clothes onto the pile before he settles between River’s spread legs. Her breath hitches as he plants a kiss to her inner thigh and he shushes her softly, breathing in the scent of her arousal in the desert air.

 

She tastes the same on his tongue when he licks her and he quietly lets go of the fear that she wouldn’t, leaning in again with his mouth open and eager. River makes a strangled gasping noise in her throat and he knows if he lifted his head, he would see her staring wide-eyed and sightless at the blue sky overhead. He knows her, he realizes, relieved. His body remembers her body and all the rest will follow.

 

He grows in confidence the more she writhes beneath him, gripping her thighs in his hands and nudging his nose against her clit every time she rolls her hips against him. Her hand slips from his hair and fumbles for his. He obliges, lacing their fingers together, his tongue busily working over and around her clit. He traces dirty Gallifreyan against her cunt until River yanks on his hand and cries out, undulating under his mouth. He laps up her arousal until she stops shuddering and her hand slips weakly from his.

 

Smiling at the sound of her heaving breaths, the Doctor places one last slick kiss to her thigh before sliding back up her body. River greets him with a radiant, satisfied smile and her clever little hands slip between them to wrap around his cock. He swears under his breath, undone by her touch and her soft laughter in his ear. _Temptress_ , he thinks, but he’s only capable of saying, “River.”

 

It’s been centuries without her, months with her and not being able to touch, and Christ he just _needs_ her. When she lifts her hips against his in silent permission, he wastes no time shifting his own and easing inside. He exhales shakily, gritting his teeth and shutting his eyes, determined to remain in control despite the all-consuming warmth of her around him. It’s a bit like their first time all over again for both of them. He won’t ruin it by rutting against her and coming too soon like a randy schoolboy.

 

Wrapped up in her and struggling to breathe, he growls when River moves impatiently beneath him, turning her head to nip at his ear. He pins her wrists to the blanket but she seems to like that just as much as ever, arching against him with a little smirk. “Be a good girl, River.”

 

She trails her foot up the back of his leg, wrapping it snugly around his hip. Her voice is a low purr in her throat. “Make me.”

 

There is nothing sentimental in his touch as he begins to move, only the desperate need to claim her as his own from himself. It’s ridiculous and irrational but it doesn’t stop him from wanting to make sure her hearts belong to him as surely as they had belonged to Bowtie. Competing against himself. River would slap him if she knew.

 

He learns her all over again, like rereading a favorite book. He remembers that she likes it a little bit rough and that having her nipples sucked drives her near to incoherency. He remembers that the fragrant, delicate spot between her neck and shoulder is so sensitive all he has to do is breathe over it to make her moan.

 

Just as he relearns River, they both learn as much about this new body of his. It likes her nails digging into his shoulders and the hard slap of their skin as he moves inside her. Her breathy cries in his ear make him shudder right down to his toes and there is nothing in the universe quite like her wild hair tickling his cheeks and his nose. He used to spit it out of his mouth and bat it away before, but now all he wants is to bury his face in it and become utterly lost.

 

Losing himself is exactly what he does. He isn’t the Doctor any more, only a part of River, connected with her in every way but one. Impatient to be wholly a part of her like Bowtie had been, he doesn’t even think before he presses his forehead to her temple and closes his eyes, reaching out to brush against mental shields she probably doesn’t even realize she has. Their lovemaking always peaked at sharing one mind, exploring each other as freely as they could with spoilers between them. He never felt closer to River than when her beautiful thoughts filled his head.

 

He’s so eager to feel it again that he forgets – he’s the only one who remembers it.

 

He senses her alarm in his head and feels her stiffen beneath him, cursing under his breath as he begins to ease out of her mind. “Fuck, sorry -”

 

River stops him with a gentle hand on the back of his neck, keeping him in place. He feels her prod against his mind clumsily, unsure but curious. It makes him smile against her cheek. More carefully this time, he reaches out and feels River fumble to meet him halfway. His mind spills into hers and there are no more secrets between them. No more spoilers. For the first time in their marriage, he lets her see everything.

 

She gasps sharply, her fingers curling tightly around the back of his neck. “Doctor.”

 

He kisses her cheek, exploring her newly made memories. There aren’t many but she gives him everything wholeheartedly, without a moment of hesitation. She pulls away abruptly, her gaze wide and her hand slipping to cup his cheek. Tears form in the corners of her eyes and he slows his movements, frowning at her in concern. “River?”

 

She shakes her head, blinking away tears to smile brilliantly up at him. “Don’t stop, sweetie.” It’s only the second time she’s uttered the word since she returned to him and his hearts stutter in his chest as he gazes down at her. He wonders if there will ever be a time when she won’t turn him into a moony-eyed idiot.

 

River strokes her fingers over his jaw and nudges her hips against him, encouraging him to pick up the pace. He turns his head and nips at her fingers for her impatience, thrusting sharply against her. She gasps, slipping a hand between her thighs and tossing her head back. Her curls spill across the blanket, catching brilliantly in the sunlight, and he swallows at the sight of her.

 

“Look at me, River,” he whispers fiercely, feeling her body tighten and flutter around him. “I want you looking at me when you come.”

 

She opens her eyes, fixing her heavy-lidded gaze on him, and he almost stops moving again. She looks different than she had only moments ago somehow; her smile somewhere between shockingly naughty and indulgent all at once, her eyes full of desire and devotion. She looks more like her old self than she ever has.

 

His breath hitches in his throat.

 

River cards strong, gentle fingers through his hair and tugs, letting her mouth brush his ear. He shudders in her arms, closing his eyes as she breathes out his name as she comes apart beneath him. His true name. The name that by all accounts, she should have no memory of.

 

He chokes on a hoarse cry as she clenches around him, listening as she chants his name until the trembling stops. With the realization that she has returned to him in every way, the Doctor sinks his teeth into her shoulder and follows her blindly into release, hearts thundering and eyes stinging.

 

He collapses beside her and struggles to breathe, his mind swimming. River wastes no time before crawling into his lap, still panting as she takes his head between her hands and plants kisses all over his face. Her lips brush his cheeks, his forehead, his eyelids and nose, the corner of his mouth. “My sweetie,” she whispers. “Look at you. All grown up.”

 

The Doctor clings to her and tries to stop shaking. “You’re -” He pulls away, staring at her with wide eyes. “You’re here.”

 

She laughs, hastily blinking away the tears in her eyes. “Silly man. I’ve been here all along.”

 

_You are always here to me._

 

He sits up, clutching at her hips, and River presses against his bare chest, kissing beneath his jaw. “But your memories. How -”

 

“It was the only way out,” she explains, still kissing his throat. As if she’s explaining how the earth orbits around the bloody sun. “I had to forget. I managed to find a way to keep the essentials but everything that made me _me_ had to go. There wasn’t room.” She nips at his collarbone and finally pulls back to look him in the eye. “Time Lord memories are complicated. Would never have survived the transfer. It was a bit like wiping a hard drive after you’ve moved the files. But the clever ones always have a backup.” She smirks, tapping a fingertip against his temple. “Took you long enough, old man.”

 

Caught between annoyance at his own bloody thickness and the elation of having River well and truly back, the Doctor struggles to keep his lips from curling up into a wide grin. “Well it isn’t as if you were any help,” he spits. “You couldn’t have written yourself a note?”

 

She shakes her head, looking smug. “I had faith you’d fall in love with me all over again.”

 

He scowls, forcing back the inclination to flush. Damn her. “You’ve always been obnoxiously charming,” he agrees sourly.

 

“Something this regeneration utterly lacks.” She eyes him fondly, her hands still wandering, stroking his bare skin in evident fascination. “Good thing I’ve got enough for both of us.”

 

He shuts her up with a kiss and decides promptly that it’s going to be his new favorite method. River sighs against his mouth, fingers tickling at the back of his neck, toying with his hair. Her teeth nip at his bottom lip, a sultry purr in the back of her throat. The Doctor breaks away with a groan. “Fuck, I’ve missed you.”

 

Her eyes widen, pupils dilating, and he watches a pink flush stain the apples of her cheeks. “Sweetie,” she breathes, startled and – he grins smugly – just a bit turned on. “That mouth.”

 

He waggles his brows at her. “Like it?”

 

River hums her agreement, wriggling in his lap until he chokes on a gasp and glares at her. “Never shut up.”

 

“That’s a first.” He kisses her neck, snorting. “Deal. As long as you never get dressed.”

 

Her laugh is low and husky enough to make his stomach turn over. This body may be older but it appears it responds to River with the same amount of enthusiasm as any young man. “I think I’m going to like this new you.”

 

She sounds delighted and not in the least bit longing for another face. Something in him unknots at that and he breathes out a relieved sigh into her hair. River has always loved every him. Why should now be any different? At least this mess gave him the chance to prove it’s the same for him – every her, no matter what.

 

It’s only when they’re on their feet and plucking their clothes from the sand that he remembers something had fallen from his coat pocket earlier. A quick scan of the picnic blanket reveals the Master’s ring, glinting in the sun. He stoops to pick it up as River slips her blouse back over her head, standing again while she pulls her tangled curls from the neck of her shirt.

 

“What’s so special about that ring?” She slips an arm around his waist, nuzzling into the crook of his shoulder, and he swallows a grin, handing the ring over to her. “Ruined a perfectly good business relationship with Kai to get it. I’ve no idea who I’ll get to sell me illegal jewels now.”

 

“You could try legal ones for once.” She scoffs and he turns his head to kiss the top of hers. “The ring belonged to an old friend.”

 

“The Master.” River purses her lips, studying the ring. “You know, I read rumors in the Library that he regenerated into a woman.”

 

His hearts stutter anxiously.

 

River’s lips twist in disappointment. “Never had the chance to run into her though.”

 

“Thank fuck for that,” he grumbles, snatching the ring back and slipping it into his pocket.

 

He reaches for her hand and pulls her in close, trying and failing to stifle the grin stealing over his face. He’d loved her fiercely without her memories but nothing will ever come close to the joy he feels looking into her eyes and seeing all of their history together reflected there. She’s looking at him like River is supposed to look at him, all fond exasperation and calculated desire, like she’s already plotting how to undress him again. He’s flummoxed and a bit delighted to find that this body likes to plot too.

 

“Now, I believe I promised you a bed, my wee psychopath.”

 

-

 

He doesn’t remember Clara until after their second honeymoon – River insists it’s at least their fifteenth but who’s counting – and only then because River mentions her. He winces as he lands the TARDIS in his companion’s living room and hopes she would understand if she knew. Having his once-dead wife back again has been a bit of a distraction. He thinks fleetingly of Danny Pink and knows Clara would never blame him for being a little narrow-minded.

 

His pocket-sized best mate comes bounding into the ship wearing a hopeful grin, massive eyes darting from him to River and back again as it to say _Well?_ The Doctor nods, exchanging an amused glance with his wife. “Clara, meet the wife. Fully restored to her original glory.” River curtsies. “Mind you don’t get too close. She bites.”

 

She looks smug. “Only you, sweetie.”

 

The Doctor smirks. He certainly has the bruised neck to prove it.

 

“That’s disgusting,” Clara says, but she’s positively beaming at them.  

 

He frowns. “Out loud?”

 

“Unfortunately for my psyche, yes.”

 

“Apologies, dear.” River rounds the console and loops her arm through his, leaning into his side. To the Doctor’s utmost mortification, his scowl softens instantly. “I’m still training him up.”

 

“Wife?” He turns to her, lacing their fingers together, thrilled when she leans right into his personal space with a soft hum of inquiry. He kisses her knuckles. “Fuck off.”

 

She chuckles, eyes glittering. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

 

“Among other things,” he murmurs.

 

“Wow, that’s going to take some getting used to.” Clara wrinkles her nose and he turns with a sigh to look at her, eyebrow arched questioningly. “You, flirting. And having a sex life.” She sticks out her tongue like the words have left a funny taste in her mouth. “Does anyone else smell burnt toast?”

 

Rolling his eyes, the Doctor steps reluctantly away from River and whirls to the console. “River, meet Clara. My _former_ companion.”

 

Clara snorts, ignoring him entirely as she steps forward and wraps River in a tentative hug. “Is this OK?” She asks, smile widening when River answers by gathering her close, a motherly hand petting her hair. “Oh good, someone who likes hugs. Nice to have you back.”

 

“Thank you, dear.” River meets the Doctor’s eyes over the girl’s shoulder, smiling softly. “It’s nice to be back.”

 

“Alright, that’s enough touching.” The Doctor taps his fingers restlessly against the console and watches them part, exchanging an exasperated look that tells him with both of them on board, he’s in trouble. Too much estrogen. Perhaps it’s time to find another Rory. Never underestimate the value of a companion who won’t wander off. “Where to, wife? Your choice.”

 

He was always afraid to let her pick before. The risk of her choosing Darillium had been too high. With the fear of her being taken from him nothing but a distant memory now, he watches River approach the console with an eager smile and feels his own mouth twitch in accord. “I think I have somewhere in mind.”

 

Fingers hovering over the keyboard to type in coordinates, he says, “Name it.”

 

She shakes her head, the eager grin turning into something secretive and familiar as she bumps him out of the way with her hip. “Spoilers.”

 

He huffs, hovering at her side and peering over her shoulder. “There aren’t any more bloody spoilers. As a matter of fact, I’m banning the word from your vocabulary. Find a new catchphrase.”

 

“What?” She scoffs. “Like Geronimo?”

 

“Don’t mock previous regenerations,” he scowls. “Rule 237.”

 

“Sorry, sweetie.” She glances over her shoulder, not even looking as her fingers fly over the keyboard, inputting coordinates. She’s far too busy raking her eyes over him – starting at his feet and ending at the top of his head, with a brief pause to linger at the hollow of his throat. If he were younger, he’d have blushed. Instead, he raises an eyebrow and enjoys her scrutiny. “But celery, really?”

 

“It went with that suit.” He’s only too aware of Clara watching them, hands clasped under her chin and bouncing a bit on her toes like she’s watching her parents reunite. It would be endearing if he weren’t entirely too conscious of the besotted way he’s watching River fly his ship. His reputation as a grumpy Scottish Time Lord not to be trifled with is in peril. “Tell me where we’re going.”

 

Turning from the monitor with a sly grin, River blocks his view of their location on the screen and leans against the console, crossing her arms over her chest. Inclining her head toward the doors, she asks softly, “Why don’t you have a look?”

 

With a suspicious glare, the Doctor steps away from her and stalks toward the doors, distantly aware of his ever-curious Clara trotting along at his heels. Throwing open the doors, the Doctor isn’t quite sure what he’d expected to find on the other side – a dusty tomb for River to explore, possibly – but it certainly hadn’t been to the sight of the citadel, to fields of red grass and silver trees set aflame by the setting suns. His throat closes up and he grips the doorframe of the TARDIS, feeling his knees buckle.

 

It can’t be.

 

He blinks his watering eyes, certain he must be hallucinating.

 

It’s still there.

 

The fields he ran through as a child. The trees he climbed. The red deserts of outer Gallifrey beyond, past forests and golden pastures. It’s all here, exactly as he remembers it. He wants to sink to his knees but he hangs onto the doorframe and forces out, “H-how?”

 

“Your ring, my love.” He can hear the trembling emotion in River’s voice and it does nothing for the lump permanently lodged in his throat. He tries in vain to swallow around it, forcing his eyes away from the sight of long-lost Gallifrey to look at his wife, still leaning against the console. “Have another look at it.”

 

He fumbles in his coat pocket for it, his breath hitching and rattling in his chest, his hands shaking. “I don’t understand -”

 

“On the inside,” she explains gently. “Coordinates. I spotted them on the beach but I didn’t want to point them out until I was sure. For all I knew, you’d already seen them and checked.”

 

He barely hears her, staring at the numbers etched into the inner band of the Master’s ring. How could he not notice? Pudding for brains, that’s why. Far too much time around humans. Their ignorance was catching.

 

The coordinates aren’t as time worn as the rest of the etchings on the ring, he notices, squinting. They’re new. Probably added after the Master escaped and regenerated. The Doctor chokes on a strangled laugh, blinking back tears again as he curls his fingers around the battered old thing in a fist. Mad Missy had shown him the way back after all.

 

Clara presses a hand to his arm, peering over his shoulder. “Doctor, is that…?”

 

“Yes,” he breathes. He can feel the warmth of Gallifrey at his back, smell the familiar scent of it in the soft breeze against his skin, but he only has eyes for River, who watches him with a tearful, proud smile. “Home.”


End file.
